


Come back unto the caverns old

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Death, FTM Nori, Fluff, I feel I must insist: all canon deaths will happen, It Gets Worse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation AU, Soulmates, Threats of Violence, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, biref mention of underage sex and abortion in chapter 5, canon character death, happy ending if your definition of it is broad enough, it gets worse and doesn't get better until the epilogue: the fic, sanity slippage, the fluff doesn't last, they're not in a relationship but it's still not healthy, this isn't going to be a happy fic, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 29,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin once had a lover in Erebor, and that lover was lost to Smaug.<br/>But it is to underestimate dwarves that to think even death can keep them away from what they love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams of the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> whaaaaaaaaat, another AU?  
> I AM SORRY I SWEAR I AM BUT IT SUDDENLY WOULDNT LEAVE ME ALONE  
> I am in a very good mood so I want to write angst  
> and heartbreaks  
> and people being sad forever uwu

Thorin often dreamt of the day the dragon had attacked.

He dreamt of fire and death.

He dreamt of a great beast crushing dwarves under its feet, as he they were but ants.

He dreamt of blood and shouts, and the cries from Erebor merged with those of Azanulbizar, the dragon becoming a pale orc against which he fought again and again until he finally awoke, feeling less rested than before he had closed his eyes.

Thorin often dreamt of the day the dragon had attacked.

But sometimes, he dreamt of the morning of that day.

He dreamt of being asleep, and feeling arms around his waist.

He dreamt of opening his eyes, and seeing the most perfect dwarf the world had ever known, looking back at him, a loving smile on both their lips.

He dreamt of kissing those lips, of making love to that dwarf.

He dreamt of being happy, of speaking of their wedding, only a few weeks away now.

Thorin dreamt of that morning, and he hated that dream.

The dream never stopped at their happiness.

The dream went on, and the dragon arrived.

The dream went on, and his lover was crushed to death by the beast.

The dream went on, and Thorin’s last memory of his perfect dwarf was something that didn’t look like a dwarf anymore.

The dream went on, and Thorin couldn’t even hold that mangled body, couldn’t even stop to kiss one last time his lover, because the dragon was still there, and Thror had last been seen in the treasury.

The dream went on, and Thorin wished it were just a dream.

He wished that he’d wake up to arms around his waist, and a smiling dwarf.

He knew he would never again.

When he dreamt of the morning before the dragon, he almost wished he would never wake up again.

But he always did.


	2. Beware the nice ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aulë is reminded that his children are a stubborn race

“I will be sent back,” the dwarf said, and there was something in the tone that implied that while the voice was sweet and polite, the demands should not be ignored.

“You are dead, little one,” Aulë informed the dwarf, cringing at his own lack of tact… but sometimes they didn’t realize that they had passed until someone told them.

“I’m aware of that,” the dwarf replied, still very polite. “But it is a mistake. I should not be dead. I cannot want to be dead. Thorin is still up there, you see.”

Aulë sighed.

Ah.

It was one of these.

There were always troublesome, these. Dwarves whose soulmate had survived. Aulë pitied them, because he knew how painful it was to wait for the arrival of a loved one… he had seen enough of his children suffer through it to understand their pain.

Once they accepted that it was just the way things were, they often realized that compared to the rest of eternity that they would spent together, a few years of waiting in the Halls weren’t so much. Most accepted it.

Others didn’t, and put up a fight, demanding to be sent back, as if their time weren’t over, as if it were within Aulë’s power to sent them back just in time to change their fate. It was always tedious to explain to them that the best he might have done was to send them back as newborns, and that by the time they were old enough to go and find their lover again, said lover would have grown old, perhaps even died.

It was usually enough to make them see reason.

“I’ll take the risk,” the dwarf answered, still sweet and polite, and yet with a smile that was something more fierce than dragon’s fire. “I can’t leave him alone. Even if I am just a child by his side, even if he doesn’t know me… I have to go back. I have to be there for him.”

“I might not be able to send you back for a few years,” Aulë warned the dwarf. “All children waiting to be born already have their own soul… and I doubt there will be many birth within the Longbeards in years to come.”

“Send me back in another tribe then, I do not mind.”

“I cannot. There are rules for these things…”

“Then I will wait, and you will send me back.”

Aulë rubbed his temples. It was always the nice ones… he had watched that dwarf over the years (the lover of a prince, he had to watch that dwarf) and had always believe that child of his was a delicate, charming, clueless little thing who only lived to please (to please, and to have arguments about literature, it seemed).

And now this.

He felt betrayed.

“Fine, I will send you back, as soon as I can,” he sighed. “Go and explore the Halls, I will call you when the time has come.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the dwarf said, before leaving.

And that should have been the end of it. Aulë didn’t intend to call back the dwarf, who would soon have forgotten that promise, taken by life in the Halls.

Instead, the very next day, the dwarf was back.

“I just wanted to know if there was a chance now.”

“Not today, no.”

“Then I’ll come back tomorrow.”

And the dwarf did.

Every day for ten years.

Until Aulë gave in.

“He will not be the same dwarf he once was,” Aulë warned the dwarf.

“I know.”

“You will be young enough to be his child.”

“I know.”

“He might not fall for you again, might not listen if you tell him who you are.”

“I know.”

“And yet you still wish to go back?”

“Until the day he sends me away himself, I will always go back to him,” the dwarf replied, and Aulë was reminded of Durin, the first one, who was so damn stubborn and wouldn’t take no for an answer, even when it was to her advantage. She has been such a pain sometimes… but Aulë had always loved her for it.

“You asked for it,” Aulë sighed. “When you are back there, and things are dark, remember that you asked for it.”

“I know.”

Aulë smiled at the dwarf, and started singing the song that would take that soul and give it to a new body.

Yavanna would call him soft hearted when she would hear about it, and she would be right.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Durin the first was a lady, because why not  
> Keeping Thorin's lover ungendered and unnamed was a terrible decision that made my life complicated and I regret everything


	3. Early years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dwarf who is now called Ori struggles with his new life

The first year felt rather like that moment between sleep and wakefulness when the mind struggles to remembers something that felt important the night before. The dwarf who wasn’t dead anymore discovered he was male, and that his outer name was Ori, which he wasn’t sure he liked. He also discovered that babies got hungry easily, and that, in his case at least, they didn’t always get the food they cried for. He didn’t like that either.

Around the start of the second year, thinking became a little easier.

It was the only thing that was easy.

In all other things, he depended on others, with whom he couldn’t quite manage to communicate. Thoughts were clear in his mind, but he couldn’t figure out the right words for them. The dwarves who were now his family thought his efforts endearing.

He hated them.

He hated everyone that wasn’t Thorin.

More than anything though, he hated himself for that stupid decision, for not having realized what it would mean to be reborn as a child. He hated how little control he had over his own body, how difficult it was to even sit up, or walk. Some days he tried again and again, until he was exhausted, until every muscle in his small body _ached_ … and other days he just wanted to give up. It would have been so easy to give up, knowing that death wasn’t such a bad place, knowing he would just have to wait for Thorin in the Halls…

Giving up would have been easy, and no one would have blamed him for it. Before his duel of will against Mahal, he had always been soft. Thorin joked about it sometimes, about that softness… it was something the prince had liked, once upon a time. But the dwarf who was now Ori didn’t want to be soft anymore. He wanted to be strong and brave, like Thorin. He wanted to be fearless like his lover. He wanted to deserve Thorin, and the thought terrified him, because before he was Ori, before dying, the idea of not being good enough had never crossed his mind. It had just been obvious they were meant to be together.

He couldn’t give up.

He had to stay strong and grow up and find Thorin again. He had to be by his One’s side, and help him through everything life would throw their way.

It was a victory when he started being able to walk, properly walk. The freedom it granted him made him almost forget that speech still refused to obey. Being able to walk… and once that was mastered, he quickly managed to climb too, much to his mother’s horror.

“He’s worse than even Nori was,” she told his father, and sometimes it made her laugh.

She didn’t laugh so much when he started escaping the house.

But he had to find Thorin. And he had heard them talk, he knew that his prince was living here too, in the ruins of Belegost. He was there, and Ori had to find him. Their house didn’t have a door, it was so easy to escape, and his mother, his father, and Dori couldn’t always keep an eye on him.

His first attempts were unsuccessful, and ended with the entire neighbourhood being aware of who he was, and that when found he should be returned to his family. He became more careful, escaping at night whenever he managed to not fall asleep too early…

It was on such an occasion that he found Thorin again, at last.

He had spent his night wandering and getting lost, hiding from the many dwarves still up (the city never slept, not really. It had surprised Ori at first, but he was used to it now) until he arrived to streets that were a better quality of ruins than anything he had seen before in Belegost. It was early morning, and he was tired and ready to give up… but then, he heard a voice he would have known anywhere.

His little heart started beating so fast it felt almost like the music of drums inside his own head. Ori ran in direction of that voice, suddenly not caring that he might be seen. It didn’t matter, not when Thorin was there, so close.

He found his prince at the door of a great house, chatting with his brother Frerin. It was a shock to see them both older, to discover the dark circles under their eyes, the new lines of worry on their faces… but then, Frerin said something that must have been particularly silly, as he always did, and Thorin laughed as usual, that deep and hearty laugh that was the most perfect sound in the world. Ori felt as if a weight had gone from his shoulders. So many bad things had happened, but Thorin was still _Thorin_ , and it gave him hope.

Ori knew it was silly to run to his prince, he knew that his lover wouldn’t recognize him, that he couldn’t even talk to Thorin, because all that would come of his mouth was baby talk that he could never quite control… He did it anyway, and Thorin jumped when he felt a small dwarfling grabbing his leg as if he meant to never let go.

“Well, look at that!” Frerin laughed. “The boys have started a trend it seems! Thorin, universally loved by all children under ten.”

“Oh, be quiet, you,” Thorin retorted, rolling his eyes. “Look at that poor child, he looks lost… He doesn’t seem to be from around here, does he?”

“Doesn’t even have shoes, yeah.”

Thorin nodded, inspecting the child… and then he bent down and took the little one in his arms.

“Well, child, we’ll have to get you back to your mother then,” the prince said, running one hand through the dwarlfing’s wild hair to put some order to it.

Ori felt sure that his heart would explode, and before he could stop himself, he started crying. He had found Thorin, and Thorin was still almost the same, in spite of everything, Thorin who had always been so kind to those below him, Thorin who tried to help everyone he could because he said it was his duty. Thorin who was still _his_ , even if he didn’t know it.

It wasn’t going to last, Ori knew it. Soon enough, his prince would find his mother and Ori would be away from him again, and he didn’t even know the way to this place, didn’t even know for sure if Thorin lived there or if he had just come to visit someone…

But it didn’t matter.

He had found his prince once, he could do it again.

And there, in Thorin’s arms, Ori knew for the first time that his decision to come back to life had been the right one.


	4. Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Children love Thorin.  
> The feeling is mutual.

The child had come so often that they were starting to know his family fairly well. His mother was clearly mortified that her youngest son kept escaping that way, and Thorin was ready to believe her when she said she had tried anything to keep him inside. Dwalin had investigated a little, and the family’s neighbours had confirmed that little Ori was wild as an orc… or maybe not wild as such, because he tended to be a quiet child, and clever too, but stubborn, and determined to get _out_.

“Well, since he keeps coming here, maybe he should stay here,” Dis suggested one morning, as Ari came to fetch her son once more. “I have two boys myself, almost the same age… Ori has played with them once or twice, and I think they like him. Maybe if he came here once or twice a week, he would stop running away so often.”

“I wouldn’t want to bother you, my lady!”

“It is not a problem,” Thorin assured her, before turning to little Ori, sitting on the ground. “Would that please you, little one? You could come here, and spend the day, but only if you promise to be good and to never escape again from home. What do you say?”

The dwarfling appeared to consider it, and Dis and Ari couldn’t help a chuckle, claiming that he was too young to be making promises. Still, when the child nodded solemnly, Thorin felt sure that he would keep to his word. There was something about the little one… he was quiet, and a little late in speaking his first words, but the look in his eyes said that he understood many things that he couldn’t tell. He looked at the world, not like a curious child discovering it, but like someone who knew it already, and was only trying to discover more of its secrets.

“He’ll be good now,” Thorin announced, taking the child in his arm. He had intended to give the little one back to his mother, but he didn’t. There was something he liked about holding the little one… maybe because he was always so quiet, and that unlike Fili and Kili, Ori never pulled on his hair or tried to punch him. Ori maybe it was just the way the child always cuddled against him, smiling as if he were the happiest person in the world in the king’s arms.

Still, Ari had to get to work, and so she took back her son, promising to have her eldest bring him again the next morning. Ori waved his hand as his mother walked away, and before he could stop himself, Thorin was waving back at him.

He stopped when he heard his siblings sniggering.

“Isn’t he a little young for you?” Frerin asked.

“Aren’t you a little stupid for a prince?” his brother retorted.

“He is,” Dis said with a grin. “And the child is as in love with you as any dwarfling his age could ever be. Dis you see the way he tried to cling to you when his mother took him back? Oh, it was heartbreaking, a true tragedy.”

“I hate you both.”

Dis only laughed, used as she was by such declarations, and with some help from Frerin she teased Thorin until their father called for them.

The oldest prince followed them back into the house, a frown on his face. He knew that his siblings meant well, and he knew that they worried. Many of his friends had fallen in Erebor, and not just _friends…_ and these days, he had cut himself from almost everyone he knew, except for his close family. Close family, and Dwalin who didn’t take no for an answer and had decided that they were still friends. Dwalin whom it hurts to see, because it was his cousin that Thorin would have married, had the dragon not come… and maybe it was why Dwalin still came to talk so often, because they both missed that ridiculously soft scholar with the kindest of smiles.

It was a loss he still felt, nearly fifteen years after it had happened. He still remembered that smile, and he still missed it, as keenly as if he had lost his lover the day before…

It was only when he was with children that the pain disappeared somehow. Then again, it was difficult to feel sad around Fili and Kili, who were so full of life. Difficult and dangerous, because if Thorin didn’t constantly pay attention around them, they always found a way to climb over him, or to steal things from his pockets, or they would just hide somewhere to do something naughty and their uncle would lose hours trying to find them again. Thorin couldn’t afford to be sad around the little ones, and he loved them all the more for it.

As if on cue, the two little monsters jumped from under a table right as the prince came in, demanding to be carried _right now_ and told stories _this exact moment_. At least, Fili demanded, and Kili nodded eagerly, clapping his hands cheerfully in approval.

“Not now, children, You grandfather called for us grownups. After that, you will get stories… if you behave.”

“But you work after!” Fili protested. “Always you work. Want now!”

“I cannot now. And it’s true I need to work… tonight, then. And tomorrow, there will be a surprise for you, if you’re good…”

At the word ‘surprise’, the little ones’ eyes opened wide, and Kili squealed in delight.

“What’s it?” Fili asked, pulling on his uncle’s tunic. “Tell us, tell us! What’s it?”

“I can’t tell, or it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore,” Thorin laughed.

The boys whined and complained, Fili promising that he would look surprised and that he was a great actor, adding that by next morning Kili would have forgotten and really be surprised anyway. They were trying to haggle when their father came into the room, and laughed at the scene.

“Why did I know I would find Thorin with you?” Gili asked with a sigh. “Come on boys, we need your uncle.”

“But there’s a surprise!” Fili protested. “We want know!”

“Ah… Well, if you let Thorin go, I will tell you something. Do we have a deal?”

The boys nodded quickly, and their uncle managed to escape. Gili grinned, and pushed his brother-in-law toward the other room.

“The surprise is a new friend to come play with you,” Gili announced, before quickly closing the door as his sons started shouting in joy. He turned to Thorin then, clearly very amused by the whole thing. “Shouldn’t you know by now that they are curious as cats?”

“I was trying to distract them from wanting a story,” Thorin protested.

“Didn’t work too well.”

Thorin grinned. “No, not really. Thank you for saving my life. One more reason to be glad my sister married you, I suppose.”

“Of course you realize that if she hadn’t married me, these two wouldn’t be here to harass you.”

“Yet another reason to be glad you’re part of the family,” the prince chuckled, and he was joined by his sister’s husband. “What does father want?”

“Something about a business opportunity in the East… and your grandfather wants to send letters to the Orocarni again.”

Thorin rolled his eyes at that suggestion. It hadn’t work the five times they had done it, and he doubted that the Ironfists would send help this time either… but he still followed his brother-in-law into Thror’s office. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too long.

With some luck, he might be able to actually tell his nephews a story before he had to get to the forge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like writing about Thorin when he is healthy and happy and surrounded by people he love uwu


	5. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori meets Nori
> 
> (warning for brief mention of underage sex, and abortion)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> concerning the warning: the character in question is around 14-15 in human years. It's dicussed fairly quickly, and it was consensual, but... welp. It's there.

“The first rule,” Nori told him, “is that you can’t trust anyone with anything important. You can tell mother and Dori about small things that don’t matter. You can tell them about things that they already know. But anything you’re worried they might react badly, then you don’t tell them. You don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

“Not even you?”

“If you tell me a secret, I’ll tell you one. I’m cool with having power over you, but only if you have some over me, because that’s how trust works. And if I betray you, then you’re free to… no, you _must_ betray me back. That’s how it works, okay?”

Ori nodded, staring at his brother in wonder. Nori was nothing at all like he’d expected. Everyone had told him he was untrustworthy, that he’d gone away so he wouldn’t have to help in the house, that he was lazy and insolent, that he wasn’t honest and he stole things sometimes…

And maybe that was true too. But it wasn’t all that he was. He was just far, _far_ more clever than a dwarf his age ought to have been, which had gotten him in trouble. But Ori adored him.

Nori was the first person to take him seriously since his birth, the only one who’d listened since he’d started talking…

And hadn’t that been a painful shock. Ori had thought that once he’d manage to talk, he could start telling his story and be respected. It hadn’t worked quite according to plan. His parents had told him that if he kept telling lies, he wouldn’t be allowed to go play with Thorin’s nephew anymore. So after so much time spent trying to speak, he’d learned to be silent.

But not for long.

When king Thror had called for volunteers to go reclaim the old kingdom of Moria, Ori’s father had been around the first ones to leave… and as soon as he’d left, Nori had come home. Ori hadn’t expected much from this brother he was meeting for the first time, but Nori had been careful around him, observing him silently for days before he first talked to him… and his first advice had been to never trust anyone.

“Why can’t I trust them? Why can I trust _you_ but not them?”

“I’ve just told you why,” Nori grunted as if he thought his little brother was acting stupid on purpose. “They won’t give you anything to use against them. If you tell them anything, they’ll have all the power and you’ll have none. You have to be careful, okay? It’s not that they hate you. They bloody _love_ you, it’s the worst of it. But if they have all the power and you have none, people forget that they can hurt you, and so they’ll do it and be annoyed if you get hurt angry. You’ve got to create equality. You’ve got to have their secrets if they have yours, and you’ve got to make sure they know it.”

Ori nodded again. Suddenly, he understood why things hadn’t been so well between his father and Nori. His father wasn’t a bad dwarf, but Nori was… _sixty_ maybe. Which meant he’d been in his late thirties or early forties when Ori had been born, and demanding equality of treatment like that at that age… it was no surprise he’d ended up forced to leave.

Ori’s father wasn’t a bad dwarf, but he did have a tendency to want things to go his way, and he didn’t take well to contradictions. It wasn’t a problem with Ari who loved him and had learned how to have things her own way in spite of it, and Dori was the sort of young dwarf who avoided conflicts… but Nori?

It could never have gone well between them.

“I want you to be able to trust me,” Nori explained, sitting down on the ground, next to his little brother. “You’re a weird child, I know that. I haven’t been home in a while, but I still have friends, and they told me… everyone says you’re weird.”

“Yes.”

“They say sometimes, it’s like you’re not a child at all. They say… they say you’re like me. Too clever.”

“I’m not a child, not really, I’m...”

“Don’t tell me,” Nori cut him. “For now, I’m the one with power. I’m bigger and older than you. First I must tell you something. Your secret, is it a big one?”

“If you believe me, yes.”

Nori seemed to consider that for a moment.

“Two years ago,” he said, “I was a little careless with a couple friends, and I got with child. I had to go to the Shirelings to get herbs to lose the child.”

Ori gasped. He didn’t know what shocked him the most. Nori was so young (younger than Ori had been when he’d died, so long ago, and he had barely been old enough to marry back then). Nori had not wanted the child (every single one was a present from Mahal… weren’t they? But why would the Maker choose to inflict parenthood upon someone too young for it?). Nori was telling him something that could have him rejected not just by his family, but also by even any dwarf with even the slightest pride.

If this wasn’t trust, then nothing was.

And Ori rewarded that trust the only way he could, but telling the whole truth. He talked of the life he’d lived, so many years before, of his love for Thorin, of his quiet fight against Mahal, of how hard it had been to grow up again, and how he’d realized he couldn’t tell anyone because they never believed him. The entire time, he expected Nori to interrupt him. But his brother remained silent, smiling here, frowning there, never uttering a word until Ori had finished his story.

“Must suck, being stuck into that small body,” Nori commented in the end.

“It does. You… believe me?”

“No child of your age could have invented a tale like that. _I_ couldn’t have, and I always was good at lying.”

Ori fidgeted with the hem of his tunic, unsure what to say or do. In fifteen years, it was the first time someone listened to him, believed him. He didn’t know what to do. But it gave him hope, somehow. If Nori, who was a stranger, could believe him, then maybe Thorin…

“You’ll have to come up with a plan,” Nori announced. “I believe you because I know you’ve got no reason to lie. Others won’t let something as silly as reason and logic get in the way of how they _think_ the world is. Even your prince… maybe he loved you, and maybe he will love you again, but it won’t be easy. You’ve got to make sure he can’t have any doubt… and that’s if he comes back at all from the war.”

“He will. If he survived Smaug, he can survive anything.”

“We’ll see about that,” Nori retorted, shrugging. “And really, don’t worry. I’ve got a plan for you.”

“Already? It can’t be that good if you got it so quickly.”

Nori smirked, and shared his idea as Ori listened. When his brother was done, the dwarfling shouted with joy, and jumped at his neck to hug him.

The plan really _was_ that good.


	6. coming home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin returned from the war  
> and he returned alone

Thorin felt nothing.

He had come home from the battles for Khazad Dum six months earlier, and in all of that time, he hadn’t felt anything, not once.

He did things, because he had to, because he was in charge of everything now, and someone had to make sure that this little nothing of a kingdom the had build among ruins didn’t fall into chaos… but he never felt a thing as he gave orders or listened to request, nor even as he started holding Naming Ceremonies…

That last one had been the closest he’d been to _feeling_ , though.

He’d refused to do them at first. It was a king’s duty to hear a young dwarf’s true name, the one Mahal had spoken to them in the secret of their heart. Only the ruler could have that sort of power upon their people. Holding a naming ceremony meant that Thorin was king… and that was wrong. Thrain still lived. He had to.

It would have been too unfair to have lost him too.

But someone had to hear the names, someone had to introduce the young dwarfling to Mahal, and mark them as real dwarves… And there was no one else now. Only Thorin.

Thorin who listened to the doleances of merchants and nobles and mine owners.

Thorin who gave orders to fight against the rise to power of criminals who had taken advantage of the wars.

Thorin who travelled to strike deals with Men for his people, so that the survivors may have work and attempt to move on with their lives.

Thorin who worked in the forges whenever he had free time, to help what was left of his family put food on their table, but he rarely had the time.

Thorin who couldn’t look his sister in the eye, not when he had failed to bring back their entire family. It was just the two of them and the children now. And while Fili understood what death was, Kili didn’t, not quite, and he kept asking when his father would come home.

They all tried to explain to him that Gili would never be back. Dis had to fight tears as she described what the sacred texts told them about the Halls, while Thorin remained cool and clinical, because try as he might, he could feel nothing, not even when Fili cried, not even when Kili looked at him in confusion and still asked _why_ his father couldn’t just _escape_ the Halls to come back to them. He said that a friend of his had once told him that such things could happen, and he had insisted until Fili had shouted at him to _shut up_.

Thorin saw them start fighting in front of him, their first real fight ever, and he didn’t do anything. He didn’t know what he could have done. Gili was the one who knew how to scold the boys without scaring them. Frerin was the one who knew how to change subjects easily with a joke. Thrain would have criticized their technique, and improvised an impromptu fighting lesson. Thror would have just grabbed them, one under each arm, and he would have dropped them at Balin’s, asking that the boys be taught some etiquette and why it was important for princes to stick together.

But Thorin was none of them.

He just watched them fight.

And felt nothing.


	7. planning the future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's what Ori's family plan for him, and what he dreams of for himself

Twenty was _very_ young to have heard one’s true name, but when Ori announced that he had, no one questioned it. His mother and Dori had grown to accept the fact that he was a queer little dwarfling. Beside, there were many advantages to it. A dwarf with their name could enter contracts, legally work (not that Ori didn’t already, running small errands for money and occasionally helping Nori here and there), and start an apprenticeship.

“I’m not sure we can quite afford it,” Ori had protested quietly when his mother had brought up the idea.

“You were reading and writing perfectly at ten without ever been taught,” Ari had replied. “We may not be rich, and it’s true things are… it hasn’t been so easy since your father was lost to the orcs, but you are clever, Ori, and I would never forgive myself if I let that cleverness go to waste. I will _not_ let you become like Nori.”

And indeed, she found a scribe ready to take him in for a smaller fee than was usual, as soon as his naming ceremony would have happened.

It made Ori sick with guilt. He didn’t need a master, he’d already had one, back in Erebor, and one of the best… and during his years in the Halls, he’d sometime talked to great scribes and poets and he had kept learning, right until he’d been sent back… There was probably nothing a low birth master ready to grant an apprenticeship so cheap could teach him. But Nori advised him not to protest.

“She wants a kid who learned right,” he explained. “Everything about Dori’s learning was organised by our grand-parents, and then there were… bad stuff that happened with my master. She wants to do things right this time.”

“By giving me the cheapest teacher in all of the Blue Mountains?”

“He’s a cousin of Dori’s father. And he’s old, he can’t write so well himself anymore, so you’ll be asked to do actual work much earlier than you would with someone else. He’s good though. Might manage to teach you a thing or two. And he’s good company and has decent tea. I think he’s got a granddaughter a little older than you, and she’s dreaming of becoming a guard… even if you don’t learn anything scribily, you might get to figure out how to fight, and that’s not too bad either.”

Ori grinned. It was a perpetual wonder, the things Nori knew about everyone. If information was power, then Nori was the most powerful dwarf the world had ever known…and he mostly used it for good things, too.

Sure, what caught attention the most was when Nori would mess with people’s life, reveal dirty secret or blackmail someone… but he never did that without a good reason, as Ori had grown to realize. If you Nori destroyed your life, you had usually more than deserved it. And really, it was nothing compared to all the rest. Nori knew who needed work and who was looking for a seamstress or a stone carver. He knew which human towns wanted to commission something from dwarven artisans but were not important enough to have nobles go there to strike deals, and he knew which dwarves were ready to travel all that way for some money. He also knew which humans towns were safe for dwarves, and which ones weren’t, and he made sure that everyone else knew too… but people never seemed to realize the good things Nori did. They only remembered the bad stories about him, and it was _exactly_ how he wanted it.

“Sometimes, I really wonder if you’re not like me,” Ori said, snuggling close to his brother. “A reborn dwarf. It’s hard to believe that anyone so young as you could know so _many_ things.”

Nori smirked and ruffled Ori’s hair, the way he always did when he was embarrassed.

“Got nothing to do with age,” he claimed. “Tons of older dwarf never know half of what I know.”

“Then it makes you all the more impressive. When… _if_ I can go back to Thorin, I think I’ll tell him to hire you as his spymaster. He would need someone as clever as you, someone who knows _everything_.”

Nori burst out laughing.

“Poor Thorin! He’d find himself with a child-bride and a messed up kid as his left arm! People’d think he’s gone crazy. Better not, really.”

“Oh, but he’d still hire you! If I told him how good you are…”

“Better not,” Nori repeated, and there was a sharper edge to his voice. “I don’t do that for money, and I don’t do it for power. What I do is for _fun…_ and sometimes, because it’s _right_. I won’t let _anyone_ put chains on me.”

Ori didn’t insist. There was a hardness to Nori all of a sudden… a secret that Ori had nothing to trade for, probably, and one his brother might not have been willing to reveal for any price. There were things Nori wouldn’t talk about, not even when Ori traded him with stories about the royal family or better yet, the dark secrets of nobles who still lived. It had to do with that child he couldn’t keep, with his failed apprenticeship, with his naming ceremony. That last was the strangest maybe. Everyone who’d been recognised as a dwarf liked to talk about it with other dwarves, while teasing those too young, or those who just hadn’t heard their true name yet… but Ori knew better than to ask again. If Nori ever felt like talking about it, he’d ask for a precious secret and then talk, but you couldn’t make him say anything he didn’t feel like saying.

Still, the dwarfling knew his idea of making his brother work for the royal family was a good one. He knew things weren’t too great in the city since the war, but with someone like on Nori on his side, and if Balin was still half as smart… there would be nothing that Thorin couldn’t do, with the right people to help him. It would just be a matter of figuring out how to make it feel like Nori wasn’t working for them at all.

It would be a challenge, but Thorin would figure it out.

There was nothing that Thorin couldn’t do, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh damn I am ever so sorry that chapters on this are so short... It's... just... all I can manage lately???
> 
> And don't hesitate to comment because writers feed on these and everything uwu


	8. the power of a name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori's naming ceremony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a not-happy chapter in which absolutely nothing happy or good happens.  
> Sorry?  
> also, warning for threats of violence against a child, and a good dose of self-hate

Once every two months, Thorin held the naming ceremony. He hated it. Facing the children. Children who had lost a mother, a father, an uncle, a sister, a cousin, a friend in the wars. Most didn’t seem to hold him responsible for it. Too young yet to understand that it was Thorin’s family that had wrecked theirs.

Others  _ knew _ . Thorin could see it in their eyes, could hear it in the way they spat their names at him, as if the very act hurt them… One even refused to give his true name, saying that he couldn’t trust a member of royalty with it. Thorin had branded the mark on his chest anyway, marking him as an adult nonetheless. He couldn’t punish someone for having some common sense. Beside, he wouldn’t have trusted himself either.

Once, he would have told Frerin about that child’s words, and his brother would have laughed, turning everything into a joke. Thorin missed him, and of all their losses, Frerin was the hardest to bear. If Dis and him had had their brother with them, they could have gone on easily. Frerin made everything better.

Frerin  _ used  _ to make everything better.

Frerin who had know how to get Thorin out of his sorrow after the dragon’s attack, when they had lost so many friends, when Thorin had lost his One… He would have broken without Frerin to help him then.

He was breaking without his brother, and each day brought a new crack to him, but he hadn’t broken yet. And until he did broke, he would have to do his duty, and listen to the names of young dwarves.

But that day, little Ori was among the young dwarves waiting to be presented to Mahal. It made Thorin’s stomach twist, for some reason. He had always liked the strange child, and even in his current state, when he could barely make himself care about what little family he still had, the sight of Ori almost made him smile. 

Almost. 

The child had lost his father to that blasted war after all. Thorin hadn’t seen him since, but he could imagine that the little one despised him now. Ori was too clever to not have understood who had made him an orphan, and for what results. And yet, when Ori follow him inside the sacred room of naming, he was smiling. Nervous, which Thorin had expected, but still smiling, and looking at the king with a hopefulness that felt like daggers.

The ceremony started normally enough. Ori answered the traditional questions with absolute ease, as if he’d known what to expect… but that was just how he was, of course. Thorin knew Ari and her sons weren’t always great believers in the old ways, but the secrecy of the naming ceremony was something everyone respected. This was just Ori being himself then, and strangely knowing more than a child his age should have known, the way he always did.

“When did Mahal come to you, and reveal your true name to you?” Thorin eventually asked, preparing the hot iron rod he would use to mark Ori’s chest, and let all know that he was no longer a child.

Ori smiled strangely at the question. “Some time ago,” he said. “Six months,” he added after a moment of silence. “Yes, six months. It was the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep. I was staring at the ceiling, and suddenly I felt it. My name. I knew what it was.”

Thorin’s fingers tightened so fast on the iron rod that embers went flying on the ground. One even landed on his arm, but he barely felt it.

He’d heard these words before, coming from another mouth… a mouth he used to kiss… and one night, they’d been a little tipsy together, and had traded stories that no one was really supposed to trade, but that most lovers shared anyway, sooner or later.

That night they had exchanged stories about their naming ceremonies and whispered names to one another, giddy on the brand new engagement they had just celebrated, and…

“ So Mahal can come to us,” Thorin recited, forcing himself to breathe again and to make sure the iron rod was hot enough. It  _ had _ to leave a scar, one that would  _ last _ . “Tell me then, what name the Maker gave you?”

“My name,” Ori announced proudly, “is Bâhâl.”

“ You’re  _ not _ !” Thorin yelled, spinning on himself and pointing his branding iron toward the child’s throat. “That is not your name!”

The boy yelped and stepped back, staring that the red hot iron rod with wide eyes. He looked terrified, and yet not nearly scared enough, because Thorin was shaking with the effort to not kill that boy on the spot for that  _ lie _ .

There was one and only  _ one  _ Bâhâl, who had been killed by Smaug, smashed to death, and no dwarf in the world would ever be  _ good  _ enough to bear that name, and certainly not the bastard of a low-birth dwarf and a common soldier. Mahal himself could have come among them to live as a dwarf, and he still wouldn’t have been good enough to deserve the name of Bâhâl.

“ I… I really am Bâhâl,” Ori stuttered, pleaded, begged, his eyes never leaving the red hot end of the rod in front of him. “Please believe me, Thorin.  _ Please _ . It’s me. Look at me, please, it’s  _ me _ .”

“ Go away,” Thorin growled, waving the branding iron in front of the child’s eyes. “Leave, now. You are not… I will not listen to such lies. Go away, or I will  _ make  _ you go.”

“But…”

“Go away!”

Something changed then in Ori’s eyes. Thorin couldn’t say what, wasn’t in a state to say what, didn’t want to know what, but something changed. There was something on the boy’s face that Thorin had never seen there before.

It might have been fear.

Or despair.

“Can you… mark me at least?” Ori asked with a small voice, one that really was the voice of a child. “I need it… please… I don’t want to have to do it myself, it’d hurt…”

“Go away,” Thorin repeated, throwing aside the rod, barely caring whether it fell on stone or on something that might catch fire. He was too tired to care. “Go away. Tell the others to come back another day. I will hear no more names today. Go away, and never come near me or my family again. We have no need for liars.”

He turned his back on the boy then, refusing to look one more second at the child who dared to claim for himself a name to which he had no right. He thought he heard Ori leave. He must have, because when he managed to move again, he was alone, and in the dark. He might have been cold too, but he wasn’t sure.

What he did know was this: Mahal never gave a name at random. All names were given for a reason. And little Ori was a friendly child, trying hard to get along with people and to understand them, though he had a queer way to do it. That was a fact.

Another fact was that the Maker had to know that Thorin would hear his old lover’s name claimed by another. This could not be chance. And Mahal had to know how it would hurt him. This couldn’t be chance either. Which meant it had been done on purpose. That child had been used as a weapon to hurt him. A reminder of his failures. Their Maker had seen how he had failed to defend any of the people whose lives he should have protected. This was his punishment.

That boy who bore the name of Thorin’s One was his punishment.

A reminder of his failures, one that would slap him in the face every time he saw the boy, or heard about him.

Ori would be his torture.

And Thorin knew he deserved it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> according to a Khuzdul dictionary I found, Bâhâl means "befriender" and I thought it fitted Ori well enough?  
> Mostly, I just want a name and it was the first one I found orz


	9. what dreams are made of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori tries to handle what happened during his naming ceremony. Nori helps, as much as he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: ritualized harm, general angst, a lot of bad things  
> and some brotherly fluff

Ori bit down hard on the piece of leather in his mouths, tears running down his cheeks. He’d thought that having died once had hardened him to pain, but having his skin burned with a bit of glowing iron still hurt. He didn’t make a sound though, and that was good.

It had to be good.

Nori praised him for it. Nori praised him the entire time, calling him brave and strong and so many nice things that were almost a surprise coming from him, but shouldn’t have. When it was needed, Nori know how to be kind… and Ori certainly needed it at that moment. Nothing had gone the way he’d thought. He’d expected Thorin to be difficult, to need convincing, but he’d never expected…

He couldn’t refrain a shudder as he remembered the hollowness in his One’s eyes, and that hot iron rod waved in front of his eyes… for a moment, Ori had wondered if Thorin might kill him, and he’d been afraid. Which wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of Thorin. In all their years together, through all the arguments they’d had, all the disagreements, Ori had never been once afraid of his lover. One of the many reasons why he loved Thorin was because he’d known the prince to be an honourable dwarf, one who would never hurt anyone who wasn’t capable of fighting back…

At least, that was how he’d been in Erebor. Clearly, things were different in Ered Luin.

He wasn’t sure he loved this new Thorin. He wasn’t sure there was anything left to love in him. Not if he had become a dwarf who could threaten a child, and deny him his adulthood.

“All done,” Nori announced, taking a wet clothes to clean the burn. “Going to put the right herbs on it. Helps it make a scar that will last. You’ll have to rub the herbs on it for at least a week, and it might hurt a bit… but you know that already.”

Ori nodded. He tried not to think about the fact that Nori had had everything ready in one of their secret meeting place, so that he could give him the mark Thorin had denied him. Nori had encouraged him to reveal his name to Thorin, so there must have been hope.

“You’ll go to your new master tomorrow,” Nori said, too casually. “You’ll like it there. Warned the old man that you’re an advanced student already. He’ll give you interesting things to do.”

It had been stupid to come back to life, Ori thought. Mahal had tried to warn him. He must have known how things would go. But at the same time, Ori couldn’t entirely regret his decision. The alternative would have been to wait in the halls, and discover after years of waiting that his One had turned into a stranger. Into someone he wasn’t sure he could love anymore. Someone no one should have loved.

Someone he still loved anyway.

“We’d better go back,” Nori suggested. “Ma will be back from work soon, and so will Dori. They’ll worry if we’re not home before them. I promised I’d be a responsible brother and take good care of you today.”

Ori didn’t want to go anywhere, least of all to a mother that wasn’t his, not really. His mother had died the day of the dragon. She’d been a noble dwarrowdam, one of the most beautiful in court. Ori remembered people telling the dwarf he used to be that beauty ran in the family. His mother had been beautiful and graceful and charming and clever and so many things that Ari wasn’t, couldn’t be because a life of hard work had tarnished any beauty she might have had, because she’d never had anyone to teach her perfect manners and all the right way to make a compliment, even less politics and the way economy worked when you could look at it from a distance… but this was where he was stuck now. Now and forever. He would never get back his place in court. He would never again chat with nobles and guilds’ heads. He would never again wear silk. He would never again hear Thorin’s laugh, see his smile, feel his touch.

“Let’s go home,” Nori repeated, helping Ori dress up again.

Ori did not resist. He didn’t either when the dwarf he had to call brother dragged him home, as if he were a rag doll.

Soon after they got to their house, Ari and Dori joined them. They were smiling and shouting and asking to see the mark on Ori’s chest, talking about what sort of present they should get him to celebrate his passage into adulthood. It took them a moment to realize that Ori wasn’t answering, but they simply thought it was the exhaustion of the ceremony. They were not entirely wrong, Ori thought.

It certainly had been exhausting to realize that the past twenty years had been a waste of time. That he had lost Thorin again, and for good this time.

So he let them put him to bed, and hoped he would not wake up again.

 

Ori did not talk again for weeks.

 

Everyone had an opinion on his mutism. Most people seemed to think it came from having had such an intense mystic experience at such a young age. That theory was supported by Ari, who said that in his sleep, he did talk… or rather shouted, begging for Mahal’s mercy and kindness, pleading to have his fate changed.

Ori let them believe what they wanted. Protesting would have taken too much effort. And letting them know the truth would only have made them think he was mad.

Madder than they already thought he was.

Nori was the only one to whom he tried to explain, in spite of his brother’s protests that he didn’t have any secrets with which to pay back that one. Ori didn’t care. It was a gift, he said, forcing himself to sign the words even though his hands felt too heavy for Iglishmek. And Nori, who hated gifts, who hated not being able to pay back a story, sat still and kept his eyes on Ori’s hands until they stopped moving.

“I think your king’s broken,” Nori said in the end. “Was broken already by the war… all those who fought in it were… but I think our little plan just finished shattering him. I don’t think you’ll get him back now.”

Ori shrugged. He wasn’t sure he even wanted Thorin back now. Not this mess of a dwarf who had tried to kill him…

Nevermind that Ori still loved him, still wished he could have helped him. He’d been good at that, once. He’d been good at helping Thorin through bad days, at showing him that he couldn’t feel guilty over his grandfather’s sickness, that some things were beyond his control… once, Ori had been another dwarf who could help, but now he was just as much of a mess as Thorin, if in a different way.

And he didn’t know what to do anymore. His only aim in life, for twenty years, had been to get back to Thorin. What was he supposed to do now?

“Learn,” Nori told him. “Your master says you’re a clever student, so keep learning. You’re a good scribe: become a great one. Travel, if you can. See the world. There’s more to it than a king who can’t see who you are.”

Ori shrugged again. He didn’t care about the world. He wanted and didn’t want Thorin, and nothing else mattered.

“Have you ever heard of Harad?” Nori asked.

Ori glared at him. Of course he had heard of it.

“I know a friend who went there,” Nori claimed. “He says it’s nothing like here. It’s like going into another world. It’s sunny all year long, and they have animals that look like monsters out of a tale. They have these things… they are huge, tall as a Men’s house, with a thick grey skin, and years big as a table, and it has horns in its mouth. They call it an Oliphant, and you’d think it’s a terrible monster, but the Men use it to help in the fields and to carry things for them.”

Ori nodded. He’d seen a picture of an oliphant, once.

“My friend, he said he got to climb on one, once. It’s nothing like riding a horse, they put a small house on the back of the beast, and you travel up there. And the people there, their skin isn’t pink like ours, it’s brown, sometimes it’s even so dark you’d think it’s black. And they don’t speak any language we have here. They don’t speak Westron, don’t even want to learn it, ‘cause there were wars, years ago. They know how to make dyes that give them colourful clothes, the likes of which you’ve never seen. They were the first ones to make silk, and they make it better than we do here, softer and lighter and stronger. They have music instruments that sound like the wind, like the rain, like starlight. They have songs about stories that we’ve never heard. In some places, there are cities where all the races live together… even orcs live with the others. Can you imagine that? A place where they’ve all learned to live together. And then, they are divised in so many peoples, so each of them have their own stories that are unique and different, and they speak so many languages…”

It was strange, the way Nori’s eyes started shining as he spoke of that place. It was as if the idea of Harad made him really alive, more so than Ori had ever seen him. Not that Ori could blame him. He’d never wanted to travel, but hearing Nori speak like that, he too wanted to see Harad, to hear its stories and meet its people…

“I’m going there,” Nori announced. “Someday soon. I just need a little more money, so that I can get started on the travel, buy a pony and food… I almost have enough money now. Just a year or two, and I’ll leave. Maybe less than that, if I’m lucky.” Nori turned to his brother, and smiled. “First time, I’m going alone. I’ve got to, because I need to figure out how safe it is… but if I came back here for you, in a few years, would you come with me?”

Ori stared at his brother with wide eyes, and Nori laughed.

“The world is a vast place,” he said. “You’ve only seen the surface, you need to dig deeper to find diamonds. You lost your king… well, that’s sad, especially with all you did to go back to him. Ain’t the end of the world though. Your king, he was one diamond for you, but there’s plenty more out there. There’s stories to learn, precious things to trade, place to discover… Don’t you want to go trade your stories for theirs? Because I know I do. Everyone here says they’re savages in the East, but then they’re savaged who survived dragons and orcs and the lord of Mordor. I want to see everything that there is to see in the world. And if you’d like, I want you to see it with me.”

“Yes,” Ori said.

It was his first word in months.

“Yes, I’ll go with you.”

“You’ll have to prepare though,” Nori warned him, but he was smiling the most sincere smile Ori had ever seen on him. “It’ll be tough. It’s a long way away, and you’ll have to know how to fight, and how to travel. You’ll have to prepare yourself while I’m gone.”

“I will.”

“And you’ll have to have stories ready, to have something to trade when we get there. You’ll have to know every single story of the West that you can.”

“I will.”

Nori laughed, as if that idea made him to happy to contain his joy. Part of Ori wondered how they had gone from try to comfort him to planning something that was Nori’s dream rather than his own. But he didn’t wonder too hard, because he was laughing too, and hugging his brother tight.

He didn’t have Thorin, would never be with him again.

But it didn’t mean he was alone, nor that he couldn’t start dreaming of new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have exactly zero control on this fic, and this wasn't exactly my plan, but for some reason I just can't resist an opportunity for huge Ori&Nori feels and I ain't even sorry?


	10. new beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time skip! Thorin is preparing for the quest  
> Fili makes a suggestion, and his uncle is less than thrilled

“I found you a scribe,” Fili proudly announced as he strutted into his uncle’s office.

Thorin didn’t lift his eyes from the letter he was reading. Another dwarf he’d thought to be an old friend, but who wouldn’t join his quest to reclaim Erebor.

“You found a sane and competent scribe willing to come with us? Really?”

“Oh, he’s the best in all of Ered Luin,” Fili replied, picking some papers on Thorin’s desk to look at them. “Not very well known by people who aren’t scribes themselves… he’s their little secret, too good to take just any job, but there’s a good chance he’d agree.”

“So you don’t know if he is willing,” his uncle noted. “And you didn’t say anything about him being sane.”

“No one sane would join us, uncle. Oh, but he comes with great recommendations, you know!” the young prince exclaimed, and there was something unusually gleeful about him. “Balin himself said that this was the best scribe he’d ever known… possibly better even than the ones in Erebor.”

That only made Thorin frown. “Why did Balin tell you but not me about this mysterious scribe?”

Fili shrugged, a little too nonchalantly. That boy could have had the world at his knees when he felt in his good right and believed in something, but Mahal, he was the worst liar the world had ever known. Thank goodness he’d have his brother to take care of that for him when he’d be king.

“Mostly because I was there when he thought about it. And I think it’s because that guy makes him uncomfortable,” Fili said, and that he seemed to truly believe. “I think he makes a lot of people uncomfortable, because he’s… different. Weird. Like he looks at people, and he knows more than he should, sometimes. But he’s a very good scribe, and if you asked him…”

“What’s his name?” Thorin interrupted.

There was no way he would escape from this, not with Fili so enthusiastic about it. He’d have to at least meet that scribe, even if the thought of anyone making Balin uncomfortable was a little unsettling. It would probably be his last attempt, though. They didn’t need a scribe, not exactly. It’d be easy to find one afterward and tell them the story…

“Oh, you know him,” Fili claimed with a wide grin. “It’s Ori… you know, that boy who used to come play with Kili and me when we were kids. Do you remember him?”

Thorin’s hand clenched on the letter he was still holding. He remembered. It was rather hard to forget these small brown eyes, and the terror in them as Thorin tried not to kill a child over something he couldn’t understand, and…

“Not him,” he grunted. “He’s too young.”

“Nearly the same age as Kili!” Fili protested. “And a lot more mature. I’ve asked around, he’s serious, hard working, and he knows how to defend himself. Not a great warrior, sure, but he’s got a good aim, and he’s pretty strong… Uncle, this is our one chance to have a scribe!”

“If Balin doesn’t trust him, neither do I.”

Not the boy whom Mahal had sent to him as a punishment. He’d have taken anyone but that child.

“Balin does trust him,” Fili grunted. “There’s a difference between not feeling at ease with someone and not trusting them. Beside, we’re taking that… Nori with us, and _he’s_ really not trustworthy.”

“I know what to expect from Nori.”

“And I know what to expect from Ori, who used to be my friends, who comes highly recommended, and who could very easily be an asset if you just went to ask him! Come on, it’s not like you to reject someone without ever meeting them.”

 _I’ve met him already and I know enough_ , Thorin almost shouted. He didn’t though. Nothing that had happened when Ori was his nephew’s friends could justify his current dislike of the boy. And he did not want to tell Fili about that failed naming ceremony. There were not many things that could drive either of his nephews away from him, but this would certainly be one.

“He is too young. I remember his mother and brother, they would not let him go.”

And that was the wrong thing to say, of course. He should have find a more direct reason to oppose to Ori’s coming… because there was something triumphant in Fili’s expression, as if he thought himself capable of convincing Dori and Ari.

Knowing him, he probably was.

“Go ask Ori, I’ll take care of the rest,” Fili suggested. “I’ll tell you where he works, and…”

“Send Balin,” Thorin cut him. “I trust his judgment on this, and if anyone can convince that boy, it will be him.”

The mere idea of facing Ori again was making him sick. Beside, if Balin was uncomfortable faced with that child, he might not try too hard to have Ori join them, especially if Fili mentioned his own reluctance… and being Fili, he probably would.

Not that Ori would want to come with them, of course. Not after their last meeting, not after the way Thorin had treated him. If that boy was clever (and he’d always appeared to be) then he would stay away.

 

“Ori agreed to come,” Balin told him that night.

“And his family agreed to, as long as we’re taking Dori too,” Fili proudly announced. “He’s not a warrior as such, but he’s very strong, he grabbed me a lifted me as if I weighed nothing! We’ve made a good deal with them, I think.”

Thorin didn’t answer, and didn’t found the strength to make himself smile.

So it was, then.

His punishment wasn’t over yet.

But if Mahal thought this would discourage him, that being reminded of previous failures would be enough to give up on this new attempt to regain his honour, then he was wrong. Thorin would see that dragon dead, reclaim his kingdom, and if he had to do his without his Maker’s support, then so it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hi I love Fili a terrible lot and my entire existence consists of nothing but Fili feels lately  
> so I had to make him be the one who unknowingly ruins his uncle's life orz


	11. A quest for closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balin and Kili come to Ori with a proposition that he really shouldn't accept

It had taken more than three years for Nori to leave, because some of his plans to earn money didn’t work quite as well as he’d expected. But he did leave in the end, and that was what really mattered. Ori was glad to see him go, and sad too. In the past few years, Nori had become his best friend, and it was painful to lose him… but it was only a temporary loss. Nori had promised to come back, and Ori knew he would. He’d grown to have the same faith in his brother he’d once had in Thorin.

He hadn’t tried to see Thorin in all that time, not once. Nori had told him it would be easier to tell himself that the king was dead, and it had helped indeed.

He’d been good. It had been more than forty years since he’d last seen Nori, but he’d been good. He’d learned to fight, and gathered stories, and done all he could to be ready when his brother would come back and take him East. Their mother thought that Nori was dead, and some days Dori did too, but Ori kept hoping. A fool’s hope probably, but it gave him something to focus on. Something to wait for that wasn’t death, and the threat of meeting Thorin again in the Halls.

Ori had always been a good scribe, but he became a great one, though he also had a reputation for being difficult to work with. Which only meant that when pompous lords thought they could order him around because he was a low birth scribe, he treated them with all the disdain of one who had been a future king’s spouse to be. He might not have been much in this new life, he might have lost everything he ever wanted, but he would _still_ be treated with respect.

It was a nice, quiet life. He worked all day long, or amused himself with copying books when he wasn’t employed, and then he had diner with his mother and brother, listened to them as they talked about their days, then went to bed. It was simple and quiet and nothing unexpected ever happened to him.

Until one afternoon, Lord Balin and the two young princes came to his house, and asked to talk to him and his family. And while Fili took care of charming Ari and Dori (he looked like a mix of his father and Frerin, Ori thought, and that was bad because whatever he’d come to ask, he would get it without a doubt), Kili and Balin asked to see his work.

“Take them to your room,” Ari ordered. “I do hope it’s clean!”

It wasn’t.

Kili seemed to find it amusing, but Balin didn’t appear to care much, too busy reading some of Ori’s works and assessing if they were as good as he’d heard. Ori knew they were.

“You’re just as bad as I am,” Kili claimed, sitting on the bed between two piles of almost clean clothes. “Since you’re a scribe and all, I thought you’d be organised, but you’re really not. And to think you were so tidy when we were kids! You used to clean our room sometimes, do you remember?”

“It made me feel in control. Beside, someone had to do it, and you and your brother never did.”

That made the prince laugh for some reason, and Ori couldn’t help a smile. He’d liked the prince, once. They had just been children, and sometimes they had frustrated him with how childish they’d been… but he had liked them, and he supposed he’d missed them once he couldn’t go play with them anymore.

“You really are as good as they say,” Balin commented, and Ori almost rolled his eyes. People always sounded surprised when they said that, just because he was young. “Well, lad, I have an offer for you. Would you be interested in taking part in a mission that would ultimately allow us to return to Erebor? A quest, lead by Thorin Oakenshield himself...”

“No.”

Ori felt cold invade his entire body at the mere name of the king. The memory of hollow eyes and a red, glowing iron rod…

“Ori, you must come!” Kili cried, “we need you! And it’ll be just like the old days, when we all had fun together! I mean,” he quickly added, glancing at Balin, “you and us always made a good team, we brought out the best in each others… and it’s a great opportunity for you, and you’d be safe, we’ve got great warriors ready to follow uncle!”

Somehow, Ori doubted that. Thorin wasn’t unpopular as such, and everyone agreed that he’d done a much better job of caring for his people than his grandfather had. But no one wanted another war, and it was generally agreed that if Thorin ever started to dream too big, he would be dreaming alone. The pain of the wars for Khazad Dum was still too fresh.

And Ori knew he shouldn’t have worried about the king, but he still did, because some habits just never died.

“How many warriors do you have?” he asked, and when he saw Balin wince, he knew the answer was ‘not enough’.

“Oh, at least a dozen!” Kili claimed. “And all of them the best you could wish for. That dragon will regret that he ever came to Erebor.”

Ori flinched at the thought of the dragon, imagining Thorin dying as he had died… he did not want to love the king anymore, didn’t want anything to do with him again, but the thought of Thorin standing before Smaug was more than he could bear.

“Who did you get?”

His voice was shaking, and Balin looked as if he knew already that Ori didn’t want to join them, but Kili didn’t seem to notice.

“Well, there’s me and Fili of course,” he said, holding out to fingers, and then he started counting the rest of them that way. “Thorin, obviously. Balin and Dwalin… some Broadbeams called Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, then there’s Gloin and Oin, and I think I’m missing one…”

Ori bit the insides of his cheek not to whine. The princes were probably well trained, but they were too young and inexperienced to count as warriors. Balin and Dwalin could be counted on, as was Gloin, but Ori remembered Oin as a gentle soul, not unlike the dwarf he’d once been… As for the other three, he thought he’d heard of them. If they were who he thought, Bifur was that dwarf with an axe in his head. A toymaker, travelling with his cousins, they said. And Thorin wanted to reclaim Erebor with these as his warriors? It was madness, it was…

It was none of Ori’s business, he reminded himself. Thorin was no longer his concern. The king was still his one, and Ori feared he still loved him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get anywhere near him.

“Oh, and there’s Nori of course!” Kili exclaimed. “Don’t know how I forgot him. He’s so weird.”

“Nori?”

Oh, dear Maker, not this.

“He’s a thief who got arrested, and after the fifth time he almost escaped, uncle gave him a job,” Kili proudly explained, before frowning. “Wait, I’m not really supposed to talk about this, am I?”

“Not really, no,” Balin sighed. “I hope we can trust you, Ori, to not…”

“Is he a skinny, sort of smallish dwarf but taller than me, with very red hair and a pretty nose and a smile like he knows all your secrets and isn’t above using them against you?”

“Do you know him?” Kili gasped, earning himself another glare from Balin.

Ori nodded slowly. There were so many questions to ask. He wanted to know how long Nori had been in town, how they had caught him, if he’d spoken of his family, if he’d really gone to Harad in the end, or if that had just been a lie to get rid of the annoying creature he was forced to call brother… But Balin and Kili wouldn’t know, or if they did know they wouldn’t tell. Beside Ori didn’t want to believe Nori had betrayed him. He was capable of terrible things, but never without reasons, and he’d always made sure people knew _why_ terrible things happened to them, so they wouldn’t do it again…

“We’ve met once or twice,” Ori sighed. “And I guess I trust him, if no one else… Oh, that’s the will of the Maker I suppose. Coincidence don’t just happen for no reason. Very well then, I agree.”

“You agree to what?”

“I agree to coming with you,” Ori said, and he couldn’t help a smile at the obvious joy on Kili’s face. “Well, that is, if my mother agrees. I’m still too young to go without permission.”

That seemed to put a dent to the prince’s cheerfulness, but Ori didn’t really worry. He was legally to young to sign contracts without the approval of his head of family, but Ari trusted his judgment. And if Fili had been working at convincing her…

It would be easy enough to avoid Thorin, he told himself. He’d just stay close to Nori and stay out of sight of the king as much as possible, and all would be fine. He wasn’t doing this for Thorin anyway, not really. He was doing this to be with Nori. He was doing this to see his old home again, and maybe give himself a proper burial. The idea hit him suddenly while Kili was babbling about how great everything would be, and Ori liked it. He would find his body, or what was left of it, and he would bury it, and then he would move on. Maybe if he could give back his body to the stone, then he’d finally be over his old life. Maybe he would forget about Thorin, and stop hoping for a miracle that could never happen.

“We’re going to be awesome!” Kili claimed at last, pulling Ori into a hug as if it hadn’t been years since they called each other friend. “Nothing will stop us, and we will reclaim our homeland!”

That Ori doubted a little, and it was more than clear that Balin had little more hope… but the young scribe still smiled, and suggested they go ask his mother for permission before getting carried away.

As expected, Ari agreed. Her only condition was that Dori would go to, and that was no problem at all, Balin and Fili said. They even looked glad that they had managed to recruit another dwarf so easily.

Once they were gone though, Ari asked her youngest son why he had decided to follow Thorin Oakenshield of all people into a suicide mission for a kingdom he’d never even seen.

“Glory?” Ori tried.

“If you cared for glory, you would not be a scribe. And there are better ways even for a scribe to achieve it. And after what happened at your naming ceremony, I’m surprised you’d want to go anywhere near the king.”

“Nothing happened during my naming ceremony,” he immediately answered, feeling his stomach twist.

He didn’t like the way Dori rolled his eyes, nor how Ari tilted her head as she looked at him, a frown on her face.

“You’re just like Nori sometimes,” she sighed. “You’re so clever, you forget that other people aren’t stupid. Well, I’m your mother, and I know you didn’t speak for weeks after the ceremony, didn’t let anyone but Nori take care of you, and you flinched anytime someone mentioned the ceremony or Thorin.”

“Nothing happened,” Ori repeated weakly.

“We’re not asking you to tell us what happened,” Dori quickly said. “Maker knows it’s impossible to get something out of you when you’ve decided to keep a secret. But we want to understand why you are making this decision.”

_Because my skeleton is in Erebor and I want a proper burial._

_Because this was my home, and I remember it, and I miss it._

_Because I want closure._

_Because I don’t believe in coincidence and if they came to ask me, then I have to go._

_Because I can’t stand the idea of Thorin putting himself in such danger again, and not being by his side._

“Because Nori’s with them,” Ori said. “I miss him.”

That seemed to convince them. Or if it didn’t, they were tactful enough to pretend they believed him. Dori even hugged him, promising that all would be fine, that he’d protect him.

Ori was grateful for it, because he might need that protection.

 


	12. Looking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin looks at Ori. A lot.

Thorin looked at the boy more than he should have.

At first it had been out of necessity, to see if the boy would betray that secret they shared, that moment when the King had lost control and acted no better than an orc… but Ori gave no sign that he was about to betray him. If anything, he seemed just as uncomfortable as Thorin whenever they couldn’t avoid talking.

(though Dwalin said the boy kept looking at him the rest of the time. It seemed to amuse Dwalin, who remembered Ori’s early crush on Thorin, so many years ago, but it only made the king feel worse about what he’d done)

But after a few visits of the boy to their home in Ered Luin (to see Fili and Kili, to chat with Nori, to help Balin with a number of legal documents), Thorin started relaxing around the boy. Ori, in spite of everything that he represented, wasn’t a bad boy. He was reserved, and didn’t speak much if he could avoid it, but there was a kindness about him…

It had taken only a few days before Thorin’s nephews and him were best friends once more, as if they hadn’t stopped talking for forty years. From anyone else it might have seemed forced, but the boys were all clearly delighted to be together again. And Fili and Kili weren’t the only ones to profit from the boy’s company. Dwalin had been pleasantly surprised to discover the child was strong enough to easily spar with him. Balin was glad to have someone to help with the apparently endless amount of paperwork that the quest demanded. But the most impressive had been the effect that Ori had Nori.

They had tried to make the thief feel as welcome as they could, considering the circumstances, but he’d refused any attempts to befriend him. Nori had accepted to join the quest because the other option was to be beheaded, but he’d made it clear that he didn’t care about Erebor, nor about anyone stupid enough to go fight a dragon. But when Ori had joined them, Nori had become less bitter almost instantly. He was even occasionally polite, though never to Thorin. The king suspected that Nori knew about Ori’s naming ceremony. They claimed to be cousins, which Dori had confirmed, but there was a closeness between them that was strange for mere cousins, especially if Fili was right and they hadn’t met in years…

It angered Thorin sometimes to see Nori and Ori laughing together at jokes they always refused to share with others.

He didn’t know why it upset him, but it did. Maybe it was because Ori was still barely a child, and too young to have a lover, especially one like Nori… A thief and a liar and a manipulator. The fact that Dori somehow seemed to  _ approve  _ of this didn’t help. Ori deserved better than this, he deserved…

He deserved to  _ not  _ have Thorin meddle in his love life, or _any_ aspects of his life, because the king had _long_ ago lost any right to do this.

But Thorin still _worried_.

And he looked at the boy, more than he should have.

 


	13. starting the quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the dwarves leave Ered Luin, and meet Bilbo

Everything was going… surprisingly well, all things considered. Ori had gotten used to expecting the worse, but for now things were fine. The trip from Ered Luin to the Shire had been nice. Nori and him had finished catching up, trading story for story, secret for secret, just like in the old days.

“I’m going there to bury myself,” Ori had admitted when his brother had insisted to know why he really was going. “To keep an eye on Thorin too, and because you’re going, but… I think this is mostly for myself.”

Nori nodded and smiled.

“Good for you. About time you started doing things for yourself. Now, what can I trade you for this… Hm… Ah, I know: I intend to make Dwalin fall in love with me.”

“Dwalin? But why…”

Nori laughed, and glanced at the huge dwarf walking ahead of them. Ori liked his cousin Dwalin, who was fun to chat and train with, who had once been a great childhood companion, but he really wasn’t what he’d have expected his brother to like.

“When they caught me, I tried to escape five times,” Nori explained. “That stupid _mountain_ of a dwarf caught me four times. If I want to get away again, I’ll have to make sure he won’t stop me… and he’s the emotional sort, I can just tell it. Noble. Nobs don’t fall for money, but flirt right and you’ll get anything you want for them. They _love_ that entire crap about having Ones.”

“You remember I used to be noble, right?”

Nori smirked. “And look where it got you.”

Ori frowned, and glanced again at Dwalin.

“You won’t hurt him, right? He’s nice. Just because his job is to arrest people like you, it doesn’t mean… He’s nice. I don’t want him to be hurt.”

“I’m flattered that you don’t even doubt I can succeed in seducing him.”

“ _Never_ saw you fail at anything you’d decided to do. So please, don’t hurt him.”

Nori just laughed, and stared at Dwalin with a smile that didn’t promise anything good. Ori was about to insist, and he was ready to beg his brother, to trade Dwalin’s safety for anything Nori would want. But before he could say anything, Kili had put an arm around his shoulder.

“What are you two talking about now?” he asked, smiling. “You look so serious Ori!”

“We’re talking about love,” Nori replied with a sneer. “So tell me, little prince, are you leaving anyone behind in Ered Luin? Girlfriend, boyfriend… anyone?”

“Half the mountains are in love with me,” Kili replied, laughing. “Look at me. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? I’m the best thing around since they invented the one handed sword.”

That, of course, was the wrong thing to say. A straight answer might have satisfied Nori, or allowed him to somehow guess the truth, but he had a tendency to think jokes were challenges. So he started questioning the prince, and since Kili was fundamentally incapable of not making a joke of everything, the conversation quickly drifted away. Ori laughed a few times, but he still felt nervous. Now, on top of protecting Thorin, he’d also have to look out for Dwalin.

Not that he had that much time to worry. More often than not, he was laughing with the princes, just like when they were children, or chatting with Balin and Oin, who had the kindness of not treating him like a child. He kept an eye on Nori of course, but so far he didn’t seem to be doing anything to seduce Dwalin. Maybe it had all been a joke after all.

  


When the arrived in the Shire, Ori fell in love with the place. Everything was so green and alive, the way Erebor was in the spring, when he’d go out with Thorin’s family and his own to enjoy the warmth… Beside, it was nice to be around people smaller than him. He’d been a tall dwarf once, almost as tall as Dwalin, and it sometimes annoyed him to be so _short_ , the shortest in the company… just for that, he was glad when he learned that a hobbit would be coming with them. He would be neither the smallest nor the youngest.

  


None of the others were all that happy about having a halfling with them. Gandalf could say what he wanted, the soft little creature wasn’t what any of them had expected as the fourteenth member of their company. Thorin in particular made it clear that he didn’t want the creature around, only tolerated him for Gandalf’s sake.

Even after a few days, when the rest of the company started at least tolerating the little one, Thorin still treated him coldly. Bilbo, who was smarter than the others seemed to believe, noticed it quickly.

“He’s not so bad when you know him,” Ori told the hobbit one night, after Thorin had sneered at him for not knowing how to start a fire. “It’s just that this is so important to him. To all of us. And the odds… well, the odds aren’t exactly in our favour. But if you show him that you’re trying to learn how to deal with life in the wild, he’ll warm up to you, I know it.”

“Well, you seem to have a lot of faith in him, that’s certain,” Bilbo sighed. “And more faith in me than I have. Though in my defense, I’ve never had to start a fire with wet branches before.”

Ori laughed, remembering his own first attempts… he still wasn’t very good with fires, not the way Oin and Gloin were. Fire scared him sometimes… but he liked Bilbo well enough, and to help him, he could face his fears.

“I’ll show you,” he promised. “Not here, the wood really isn’t good… but tomorrow night. And if you ever have any questions about anything, just come ask me, I’ll help.”

The hobbit threw him a strange look, as if he were unconvinced.

“I’m older than I look, older than you even!” Ori exclaimed, and it made Fili and Kili snigger.

“Yeah, he’s very old!” Kili laughed, coming to sit with them. “Oldest of them all. Look at him, he radiates oldness and wiseness, doesn’t he?”

Bilbo smiled at that, and Ori felt _betrayed_.

“You weren’t laughing so much when you asked me to tell you about how to properly talk to a wizard last month,” Ori accused.

Kili only laughed harder, and punched his shoulder playfully.

“You’d promised to keep that secret, you orc! And fine, so you are a little knowledgeable for weird things. It wasn’t much use though. He laughed at me when I used to proper way and he said to just call him Gandalf.”

Ori shrugged. It wasn’t his fault if Gandalf couldn’t appreciate being treated properly. And the few times he’d come to Erebor, he had mostly accepted the protocol. Ori couldn’t have _guessed_ that the wizard actually hated it and much prefered to be treated as normally as possible.

“It doesn’t mean I can’t teach Bilbo how to start a fire,” he pointed out.

“Nah, but I’m sure Fili and I can teach him faster,” the prince retorted cheerfully.

“We’ll be sure to think of you if there’s ever need to have him talk in court though,” Fili added with a smirk. “You’re far better at it than us. Maybe I should marry you when I’m king, and let you take care of everything that is too difficult for me.”

That had Kili laughing so hard it was a wonder he didn’t choke, and a few of the older dwarves (mostly Bofur, but also Gloin and Balin) joined the hilarity. Bilbo seemed far too shocked by the declaration to laugh though, and Dori immediately ordered Ori to come sit with him and help him with some sewing he had to do. Ori gladly obeyed, which made the others chuckle. There went his last hope of ever being seen as anything but the company’s child.

“Don’t flirt with the princes,” Dori whispered when Ori sat by his side. “That’s an order. You’re clever, and you’re pretty, and I know you’re friends with them, but don’t flirt. Nothing good will come of it.”

“I wasn’t flirting, Fili was. And it wasn’t even flirting, it was just a joke.”

“There’s things you shouldn’t joke about, tell him that. I don’t think Thorin finds this very amusing at all, and I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Ori almost replied that Thorin was smart enough to know there was nothing serious in what Fili had said, but when he turned to look at the king, he wasn’t so sure. The king was glaring at him, as if he were some sort of terrible monster.

It was not unusual for Thorin to be looking at him. He’d done it often enough in Ered Luin, though he’d usually seemed curious or worried, or on some rare occasions amused if Ori was doing something very silly with the princes. But anger was new. Thorin hadn’t looked this angry at him in years, not since…

Ori sighed.

It had just been a joke, and not even his joke, but maybe he wasn’t allowed them.

“I’ll tell Fili not to make fun like that,” he promised Dori.

“I’d appreciate it,” his brother replied kindly. “I’ve got enough to do just making sure that Nori doesn’t do anything stupid, I want to be able to count on you to be a little more clever than him.”

They shared a smile then, and Dori pulled his little brother in a hug. Ori didn’t even _try_ to fight it back, because there was no escaping Dori’s hugs anyway.

But even if he could have, he wouldn’t have wanted to.


	14. chatting in Rivendell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some conversations are had, and discoveries are made that Thorin isn't sure he liked

Fili was not flirting with Ori.

He had promised so, even laughing when his uncle had asked him, looking as if the mere idea of it were ridiculous. He claimed that it’d be like flirting with Kili or Gimli. Ori almost felt like family, he’d said, for all that they hadn’t seen each other in years.

“Beside, he’s too old for me,” Fili laughed heartily.

“A worrying statement, considering how young the boy is.”

Fili grimaced, and laughed again.

“That came out wrong, sorry. Ori’s young in age and body, but his mind is ancient. Talking to him feels like talking to Balin sometimes… if Balin still felt allowed to joke and gossip with us. He knows things.”

“What sort of things?”

The young prince shrugged, and frowned. “It’s hard to explain. But I remember when we were children, Kili and me were always so amazed by how well he understood adults… and he still does. He knows where to stop a joke better than we do, he knows when to stay silent… I think that’s it, actually. It’s not the things he does that make him feel old, it’s the things he doesn’t do. And then, there’s the way… if you can, look at him when people talk about love. That’s when you see how old he is.”

An odd thing to say certainly, but no odder than the idea of Ori being _old_ in any way, and so Thorin did not insist. He tried instead to comfort himself with the knowledge that his nephew always kept to his word, and so would never pursue that boy.

 

It was not until they were stuck in a house of elves that Thorin had cause to think again of his nephew’s strange words.

After the novelty of the first few days, and the pleasure of feeling safe again, the company soon grew very bored in Rivendell. There was only so much chaos they could provoke without being repetitive, and while Elrond’s house was large, exploring it couldn’t take for ever. That was why one night, after dinner, they all gathered away from the elves to chat and sing. Even their burglar, who often prefered the company of the tall ones, had joined them that time.

It might have been better if he hadn’t, because all the rest was his fault.

Gloin might have been blamed for annoying everyone with the lyrical nonsense he was spurting about his wife, but it was Bilbo whose question started it all.

“What is that supposed to mean, when you say she’s your One?” he enquired after Gloin had finished repeating to them the poem he’d told his wife to ask her in marriage. “Your one what?”

The dwarves all stared at him, in horror or confusion. The hobbit noticed it of course, and he blushed and squirmed a little, but his own eyes didn’t leave Gloin for one second.

“She’s just my One,” Gloin retorted, looking as if he didn’t even understand the question. “She’s. She’s my One. That’s just it.”

“But your one _what_?”

“It’s a dwarvish expression,” Balin kindly explained, glancing at Thorin to know if he was allowed to speak of it. The king hesitated, and nodded. There was no danger in telling the halfling about this, even if the subject wasn’t one of Thorin’s favourites.

“It is our belief that no dwarf is made alone,” Balin explained. “Our Maker creates us by sets of two, and so for each of us, there is another half of their soul that lives in another dwarf, and that is what we call our One. Most dwarves who meet their One fall in love with them, though it is not unheard of to instead share a great friendship. But no matter how it expresses itself, it is a link we respect greatly, and a dwarf must defend and protect their One as fiercely as they would with someone of their own blood.”

A few in the company nodded gravely, but most smiled and grinned, or even rolled their eyes.

“That’s the Longbeard for you, always making it all sound solemn and difficult,” Bofur guffawed. “Finding your One, it’s a pleasant thing, master hobbit, don’t let them make it sound so grim. Bombur certainly wasn’t thinking of fiercely protecting his lady when he first met her. Poor him, he got all blushing and stuttering at first sight, but now they’re best friends _and_ they have three kids. I’m sorta envious myself. Looks nice to find your One.”

Bombur blushed but nodded shyly, while Gloin grinned and enthusiastically nodded so hard that Oin teased him it’d fall if he didn’t stop.

“Even if you’re just friends it’s all very nice,” Dori agreed. “Not that there’s anything wrong with romance, but you don’t need to be falling in bed with them to be happy.”

Nori snorted.

“You’re a bunch of sappy idiots,” he claimed with a smirk. “Ones don’t exist. It’s all just a damn tale to make sure kids don’t sleep around too much.”

That declaration provoked an immediate uproar, most company shouting at Nori for such an outrageous declaration. But not Ori, Thorin noticed. The boy was staring at Nori strangely… and why shouldn’t he? Hearing one’s lover say such a thing… and it was more than likely they were lovers, Dwalin and Balin agreed with him on that, and disapproved as much as he did. Ori was a strange boy but he deserved better than that thief…

“It’d be _better_ if it really were just a story though,” Ori sighed after a moment. “It _never_ ends well.”

It had been said barely above a whisper, but Thorin still _heard_ it. And while the king knew he should have left that alone, the idea of Ori having any doubts about the concept of Ones somehow felt like an slap.

“Aren’t you very young to have such dark thoughts on this subjects?” Thorin asked, cringing at the way he made it sound like an accusation.

Ori jumped in surprise at being talked to, and immediately, Nori put an arm around the boy’s shoulder while Dori shifted to sit a little closer to him. But Ori, for once, did not seem afraid nor even worried at having Thorin’s attention. The boy had been shaking and terrified of Thorin when the king had saved him from being spotted by orcs and killed a few days earlier, but this night Ori was staring right back at him as if he didn’t even know what fear was.

“I simply see past the initial joy of it,” the boy claimed, his voice calm but icy. “It might be nice enough to find the other half of your soul, but I think people do not often realize what happens after you’ve found them. Or, say, if you lose them. It’s all very nice to fall in love or have a best friend, but these things cannot last. We live in a dangerous world. How many dwarves have lost their One in Erebor, or in Azanulbizar? Do you think they are still happy to have found their One, now that they have lost them this way?”

Something about the boy made Thorin feel uneasy, something made his stomach _twist_ , something…

“I do not think any who has lost their One can regret meeting them,” Balin protested.

“How lucky of them,” Ori replied politely. “But then, I imagine that it is easier to deal with loss when you're rich and noble and you have other comforts to help you move on, isn’t it?”

“Ori, stop that!” Dori hissed.

It was in the boy’s smile maybe, Thorin thought. There was something familiar in that polite and distant smile, familiar but long forgotten…

“It’s quite fine, Dori,” Balin said diplomatically. “Young people are entitled to their ideas…though I would not have expected it of you, Ori, to be judging this way a situation that you do not understand.”

Something in the posture too, the king realized. He had seen that cold smile before, but also the way the boy’s head was slightly tilted and his hands were neatly resting on his knees to make him look as non-threatening as possible… and a voice, different from Ori’s, deeper maybe… _You’ll never get the hang of it dearest, you just can’t hope to look harmless, it’s not in your nature_ … and a laughter…

“I know exactly what I am talking about, master Balin,” Ori claimed, rising slowly to his feet and glaring at Thorin. “I lost my One in Azanulbizar.”

No one tried to stop the boy when he left. The horror and shock of what he had just said even managed to have Thorin snap out of his memories. Ori had been such a young child when they had gone to war, barely talking… and certainly he’d been late to talk, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d been so young then…

But no dwarf would ever have joked on so serious a matter, and mistakes were few, almost unheard of. Beside, Ori might laugh with Fili and Kili, but he was rarely the one who came up with their jokes. The boy spoke what he thought to be the truth, or nothing at all, just like…

“Wait, I thought Ori was shagging you,” Kili told Nori. “Did I get that wrong?”

Thorin cringed at his nephew’s lack of tact. Fili slapped the back of his brother’s head, but Nori just exchanged a look with Dori, and they both started laughing.

“I think there’s been some sort of a mistake here,” Nori sniggered, fighting for breath and pointing at Dori. “I’m their _brother_.”

There was another moment of silence, and Bilbo broke it, laughing uncomfortably.

“Well, this has been a night for unexpected discoveries,” he said, smiling forcefully. “Anyone else has something to announce?”

“I have trouble digesting beans,” Bofur volunteered. “They give me gas.”

They were all so tense that though the joke was weak, they all laughed as if it were the best one they’d ever heard, and they pretended to forget what Ori had told them.

But somehow, the boy’s cold smile remained on Thorin’s mind the rest of the night.

He had seen that smile somewhere before.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember where.

Just as he wasn’t sure he wanted to know why it had been such a relief to know Nori wasn’t Ori’s lover.


	15. flirting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori wishes Nori would stop being an immature flirt

Ori went to hide somewhere quiet, but of course Nori found him quickly. He looked rather smug,and that wasn’t a surprise either.

“Don’t you start,” Ori grumbled. “This is all your fault!”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You flirted with Dwalin all evening.”

“I never!” Nori exclaimed, feigning indignation.

“You stole his pipe.”

“That’s not flirting.”

“With you it is.”

Nori laughed, and didn’t bother protesting. Instead, he sat down next to Ori, putting his arm around his brother’s shoulders… and that confirmed that his flirting session with Dwalin must have gone well, because Nori was only this affectionate when he was in a very good mood.

“You will never believe what they were all thinking about us,” Nori said, smirking.

Ori shrugged. “I don’t have anything to trade for that story.”

“I’ll trade it for the way you’ll smile when I tell you,” Nori generously offered. “The whole company, they thought we were lovers.”

Once the first moment of surprise had passed, Ori burst out laughing. The very idea was so ridiculous… mostly because it was still incredible to him that others couldn’t see how obvious he was in his love for Thorin. Beside, he looked so much like Nori, more than he looked like Dori… and there was their names, and how could anyone think that Dori would ever let his brother take a lover, let alone one like Nori?

“Now that’s a very silly idea,” he giggled after a while.

“Little Kili was devastated, he was so sure he had you figured out.”

Ori chuckled. That certainly explained why Kili had always tried to give him occasions to spend time with Nori.

“And what did the others think?”

“Dori was half scandalised and half choking because he tried not to laugh,” Nori announced, grinning at the memory. “Everyone else was pretty surprised. Dwalin wasn’t though, but he’s got a face that’s hard to read. And Thorin…”

“Don’t tell me about Thorin, don’t!”

“He looked relieved,” Nori said anyway, frowning as if he weren’t quite sure to make of that fact.

Neither did Ori, who wished that Nori hadn’t told him. It was hard enough already, keeping his distance from Thorin. He managed most of the time, when they travelled all day long and slept all night, but since they had arrived in Rivendell, it had been particularly hard, because he’d had nothing to keep himself busy. Nothing to do but to watch Thorin (which was painful) or Nori’s attempts at flirting (which had him very worried for both his brother and his cousin).

He would never have dared to participate in a conversation about Ones otherwise. He was smarter than that… usually. But hearing them speak so happily of true love have hurt too much.

“Maybe there’s hope for you,” Nori said.

“What?”

Nori shrugged, and stared at the wall across from them.

“He looks at you a lot. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Thorin looks at you a lot, and not the way he looks at his nephews. I have no idea what goes through his pretty head when he looks at you, and I honestly don’t always like it… but he looks at you. Could be that walking toward his blasted mountain is making him feels like he doesn’t have to be such an ass all the time now. Or maybe he’s starting to realise how much you’re like… well. Yourself, I guess.”

Ori pondered that for a moment. He rather wished Nori hadn’t told him that. It was hard enough to ignore his feelings for Thorin as it were, but being given hope…

And he knew himself: it would have taken less than this to make him hope. 

Nori was rarely wrong.

“Still can’t see what you see in him,” Nori claimed. “He’s got a pretty face, but that’s about it.”

Ori shrugged. That was an old argument between them, and he couldn’t entirely blame Nori. 

When compared to what he had once been, the king was a shadow, the shadow of a shadow, a dead dwarf still walking… Sometimes, Ori still saw glimpses of the dwarf he’d fallen in love with, and it was enough to keep him attached… this new, dead Thorin was still brave and compassionate and fierce and clever, enough so that they had all agreed to follow him… (even Nori had been affected, or he would have found a way to escape after signing his contract, Ori was sure of it). But compared to the prince he’d once been, he was  _ nothing _ . A shadow. A ghost.

A dead dwarf walking.

But Ori’s was one too, in his own way. The dwarf he’d been once would have despised what he had become.

“Shit, Dwalin’s coming,” Nori sighed.

“ You  _ stole his pipe _ , why do you sound surprised that he’s coming?”

“Thought it’d take him longer to noticed,” Nori grunted, before looking up to smile insolently at Dwalin. “Hello there your tallness! What brings you here with the likes of small and weak little dwarves like us? Did I do something wrong again, mister officer?”

It was amazing to watch, the way Nori flirted. Ori would never have thought it was possible to do it while mocking someone so openly, but Nori managed it. Everything in his voice and posture made his disdain of Dwalin obvious, and yet there was also something in his smile, the way his hand rested on his own thigh a little too high…

Dwalin saw it too, and glared at Nori, as if he were angry… but Ori had teased his cousin too often in their youth not to differentiate between his collection of glares. This particular one wasn’t  _ just  _ annoyance, and it worried Ori.

“You stole from me,” he told Nori. “Give me back my pipe.”

“Such accusations!” Nori exclaimed with an air of mocked pain. “And what are you going to do now, search me for it?”

There was a slight smirk on Dwalin’s lips, and Ori didn’t like that either.

“I am not going to search you,” the tall dwarf replied. “I don’t have to. I know you have it. If you use it, I will take it back. If you don’t use it, I don’t see why you took it, and I’d advise you give it back so that I can enjoy it.”

Nori smirked, and waited, as if he expected more… but Dwalin kept silent.

“Aren’t you going to threaten me, mister officer? You’re not counting on my wonderful moral fibre to give you back anything, are you? Counting on the honesty of a thief…”

“ You’re  _ not  _ a thief,” Dwalin retorted haughtily, as if the very idea were ridiculous. “You are a member of Thorin Oakenshield’s company. You are my comrade. I will  _ not  _ threaten you, and I  _ will  _ expect you to  _ act  _ honestly, as the  _ smart  _ dwarf that you are. If you want to give back my pipe, I’ll be with the others. Or you can just put it with my things whenever you feel like it. Your choice.”

Having said his part, Dwalin turned around and left them. Ori had expected his brother to laugh, or react in some way, but Nori seemed too stunned to even move.

“That dumb piece of shit,” he whispered after a moment, and he sounded so impressed that Ori was rather sure he’d meant it as a compliment. “Did you hear that? Did you hear… He called me honest! How dares he…”

“What a terrible insult, you should demand a duel.”

“ He called me  _ honest _ !”

Ori chuckled, which earned him a glare, but he was too amused to mind.

“He didn’t call you honest, he said you could act like it. And I think he knows you’re playing with him. You should give up and…”

“Give up?” Nori repeated, staring at his brother with wide eyes. “Are you gone as crazy as your king? Give up? He called me honest! Can’t let this happen. I’ve got a reputation! I’ll show him honest, and teach him to trust Nori son of Ari!”

His furious smirk, his offended tone of voice were so ridiculous that Ori couldn’t help laughing. Dwalin didn’t know it, but he was in terrible trouble.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nooooooooot super happy with this, but I didn't manage to write anything better today orz


	16. Start with the youngest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Goblintown

“Start with the youngest,” the great goblin bellowed,and Thorin’s blood froze.

If they were captured, it was agreed that the company would do anything to protect the king and his nephews, since without them, there was no quest anymore.

Thorin had always known it might come done to watching some of his subjects die or be tortured. He’d never liked the idea, and would have done anything to avoid it, but Erebor mattered above all else.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori _could_ be sacrificed.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori was no _Erebor_.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori made him feel things that he wasn’t supposed to feel, things he hadn’t felt since Erebor, and maybe it would be a _relief_ to have him die, so that these feelings would no longer plague Thorin.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori was no Erebor.

Ori made him feel like things _beside_ Erebor mattered maybe.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori was his curse and his burden and his relief when he smiled the right way, or laughed, or when he frowned just that way, like…

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori made Thorin’s world _complicated_ , more than it already was.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori was bad and Ori was good.

Ori was young and sweet.

Ori was old and bitter.

Ori was too many things at once, and Thorin loved and hated him for it.

“Start with the youngest.”

Ori was Thorin’s greatest mistake.

Ori could not be allowed to die, not again… and that again passed only briefly through the king’s mind before being repressed, but it left behind it the most intense of pain, and it decided it all.

Ori could not be allowed to die.

So Thorin stepped ahead, to protect a dwarf he regretted ever allowing into his life.


	17. fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori's had a rough day in the mountains

Ori was sitting on the ground and clinging to Dori as they waited for Bilbo’s return. The hobbit had gone to see how far behind them the orcs were. Very far away, Ori hope. He’d been through enough already.

It was funny, in a way, how he’d gone on this quest to protect Thorin’s life, and Nori’s, and to bury his own corpse, but it had never occurred to him that he might die too.

Again.

It was funny in a way, and not funny at all because all of a sudden he was scared. He could not die yet. He could not die before seeing Erebor again. 

He could not let himself lie as a graveless corpse again.

“We’ll be fine,” Dori promised, pulling him tight against his side. “Mister Gandalf will find us somewhere safe, as soon as Bilbo’s back. We’ll be fine.”

A lie, Ori thought.

Erebor had been meant as a safe place, once, until the dragon came.

There were _no_ safe places.

“I want to go home,” he sighed, almost sobbed. He wasn’t sure which home he meant, though. Ered Luin had never been a home, he’d never allowed it to feel like one. But Erebor wasn’t anyone’s home anymore. It was a graveyard. His graveyard. His mother’s. His father’s. His friends’. But the need was still there.

“ I want to go  _ home _ .”

“We are going home, master Ori,” Thorin claimed quietly, putting one hand on his shoulder.

Ori hadn’t even noticed how close the king had come. He did, however, notice the warmth of his hand, so close to his skin after so long… and Thorin was speaking to him, too. Actually speaking to him, and of his own choice…

“Do not lose hope,” the king encouraged him. “It might be that our hobbit is right, and the worst is behind us. And even if it is not… as long as we stand together, we have nothing to fear.”

Ori felt his brother move, as if he were nodding. From the corner of his eye, he could see most of the company turning toward Thorin, and relaxing. As if the mere fact that  _ he  _ was saying these words could make them true. As if he could make them believe anything, just as he did when he was younger.

Maybe there was still some of Erebor’s prince alive within him after all.

“I trust you, my king,” Ori replied before he could stop himself. “I’d follow you to the end of the world, if you asked for it.”

Thorin flinched, and looked at him strangely for a second.

“I would not ask so much of you, master Ori. I know I have no right to ask it of you.”

Ori looked up at the king, and there was… remorse on his face. It had to be remorse. Ori had seen often enough when they were young. They argued sometimes (just  _ sometimes _ , arguments had been so rare in spite of their…  _ heated  _ first meeting), and Thorin didn’t always get along with his family, and he’d just seen it again when he’d apologised to Bilbo (not that he liked to think about that, this particular image Ori was trying to forget as quickly as he could)

Remorse for what though… For what had happened in the goblin’s caves. For the way Ori had almost died in that tree. For his naming ceremony, maybe. It mattered little. Remorse meant that Thorin  _ cared _ . 

It  _ had  _ to meant that, didn’t it?

Ori _so_ wanted him to care, in spite of all he said, in spite of his attempts to tell himself he didn't love the dwarf Thorin had become. He wasn't asking for love, he wasn't asking for affection, he just wanted Thorin to _care_.

And if Nori was right, if Thorin looked at him…

“You can ask anything you want of me, my king, and for you, I would do it.”

Silly thing to say, and it could be mistaken for flirting… 

Which it might have been. Ori wasn’t sure anymore. He was too tired to be sure.

The thought must have crossed Thorin’s mind too, because he quickly removed his hand from Ori’s shoulder, as if burned, and there was  _ fire  _ in his eyes…

Not that Ori had much time to look at the king. Dori quickly pulled him closer, and started babbling something about ‘the boy being tired and not knowing what he was saying’. Bilbo’s return proved a further distraction, and before long they were all running again, pursued both by orcs and by a great bear.

Ori didn’t have time then to worry whether Thorin was looking at him or not.

But as soon as they were somewhere safe, he’d make _sure_ that the king _looked_.

 


	18. conversation at Beorn's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwalin doesn't like what he sees, and tries to do something about it

Dwalin had waited most of the morning for the right occasion to come. He’d _known_ since the night before that Nori had stolen his pipe. _Again_. And he’d been almost sure that if he ignored the thief for long enough, Nori would grow bored and try to provoke him.

Nori could be very, very clever, but he didn’t bother when he was with people he believed to be stupid. And he seemed to think that Dwalin was very, _very_ stupid. It annoyed the warrior more than he would have cared to admit. He was used to people thinking he was nothing but a lot of muscle with no brain, but when even someone as smart as Nori thought it too, it hurt. It hurt, but Dwalin was used to it…

And it made it feel so much _better_ to be about to outwit such a smart dwarf, even if it was just because Nori was underestimating him. It made him feel…

Ah, and  _ there  _ was the pipe.

Dwalin immediately rose from the corner of the chimney where he was sitting, and strode toward Nori. Before the smaller dwarf could tease or insult him, Dwalin grabbed him by the collar and pulled him outside of the house. Ori threw them a worried look, but Dori barely looked up from what he was sewing, and no one else seemed to care. Even Nori barely resisted at all, clearly glad to be getting a reaction at last.

“Got a problem, soldier?” Nori asked with a grin too innocent to be true once they were outside. “Lost something maybe?”

Dwalin shrugged, closed the door carefully, and dragged the other dwarf away from the house and toward the beehives. Nori hadn’t shown any signs of fears toward the huge bees, unlike most of the company. It was a safe enough place to chat.

“Trying to keep this private then, m’lord?” Nori said, smirking in what he probably thought to be a seductive manner. Dwalin _wished_ he wouldn't find it seductive. “D’you have some business with me maybe, or…”

“Tell your brother to stay away from Thorin, it won’t end well.”

The surprise on Nori’s face face priceless, if only because it was  _ genuine _ . Dwalin wasn’t sure Nori’d shown a single genuine expression since the moment he’d been recruited into the company, or possibly in his life. Dwalin might not be the smartest dwarf in the world, but he had managed to surprise someone who probably _was_ , and he quite enjoyed it.

Of course in the blink of an eye Nori was back in control of himself, but Dwalin knew the other dwarf wouldn’t underestimate him again.

“What’s my brother doing to Thorin then?” Nori sniggered. “Your king can’t stand having a kid admire him a bit?”

“ It’s not just admiration and you  _ know  _ it. Tell Ori to stop it. It won’t  _ end  _ well.”

Nori glanced over him, as if he were trying to make his mind again about Dwalin.

“Ori knows what he’s doing,” he eventually replied, but he didn’t bother hiding he wasn’t convinced of it.

And while Ori was probably a bright lad, who always seemed to know more than a kid his age should have, Dwalin wasn’t so sure he really knew what he was doing. Not this time. Not with the way the boy smiled at Thorin since they had arrived at Beorn’s, and kept trying to get the king’s attention, laughing loud at the princes’ jokes, making some jokes of his own whenever he could, offering his help with cleaning Thorin’s weapons and asking the king’s opinion on his notes of the travel…

As far as flirting went, it was fairly innocent. From anyone else, it might not even have been flirting at all. But from Ori, who never spoke two words if he could avoid it, and who was more at ease with his book than his companions?

But the worst, in Dwalin’s opinion, was that it was  _ working _ . In good or bad, Thorin was affected.

“Your brother’s a good kid, but he doesn’t know Thorin,” the warrior grunted. “It won’t end well. Thorin’s already met his One, you know. Died in Erebor.”

“I don’t believe in Ones.”

“But your brother does, and he’s got to be told that Thorin’s not his.”

Nori shrugged, unimpressed.

“ Thorin’s not good for your brother,” Dwalin insisted. “He’s my friend, and he’s family, and it was my favourite cousin he’d have married in Erebor, and I  _ like  _ him, but he’s not _good_ for Ori. It’d end in tragedy.”

“ Doesn’t love always does that?” Nori retorted. “Beside, your king likes my baby brother, I rather think. Ain’t you just worried that he might replace your beloved cousin with some  _ bastard _ ?”

“ He likes him for the  _ wrong  _ reasons,” Dwalin explained. He knew better than to deny anything with someone like Nori, and it _was_ true that Thorin looked at the boy far too much. “Ori’s… like my cousin. And that’s not good. He’s a good kid, and he deserves better than that. Better than being  _ liked  _ because of the ghost of someone who was  _ loved _ .”

Balin would have found better words to explain it. He’d have put words on the things Dwalin could only feel, on that  disaster that would come if Ori wasn’t made to understand things were hopeless, if Thorin decided to stop resisting temptation. There would be tears, there would be drama, there would be pain, and Dwalin wished he had the words to explain it, because he liked both Thorin and Ori, and this could be  _ prevented _ .

But Nori saw everything, understood everything, even when people kept silent. If anyone could understand the words Dwalin didn’t have, it would be him.

“You’re right,” Nori commented after a long silence. “But it won’t be enough to stop him. Ori’s clever but he’s not always smart.”

“You’re his brother, tell him to stop.”

Nori just laughed at that, as if the idea were utterly ridiculous.

“Nobs! Say, soldier, would you stop flirting with me just because your brother asked you to?”

“Yes,” Dwalin quickly replied. 

It wasn’t a lie. If Balin insisted, he would do what his brother asked, because Balin was the eldest and knew better, even now that they were both adult. But then Nori smirked, and Dwalin realized that a better answer would have been to deny he was flirting at all. Because he wasn’t. Flirting was always trouble at best, but flirting with someone like Nori would have been madness.

“Well, Ori isn’t you,” the lean dwarf sniggered. “When he’s decided on something, he could hold his ground against bloody Mahal himself and get things his way. I can say what I want, he won’t listen.”

“He’ll get hurt.”

“That’s all he ever does,” Nori muttered darkly, before smiling sadly to Dwalin. “Best I can do is hope that this time he gets hurt enough that he learns to give up, but not so much that he starts giving up on _too many_ things.”

And that was Nori for you, talking in riddles just for the sake of it. As if it would have been too simple to just say that the young needed to make their own mistakes sometimes. Damn Nori and damn Ori and probably damn Dori too, for making things complicated when they needn’t be. But Dwalin had tried at least, and if things kept going that way, he would have to talk to Thorin. That would be awkward, because neither of them liked talking of the old days in Erebor, but Ori was a sweet kid and Dwalin felt it was his duty to protect him. It was his duty to protect  _ anyone  _ who needed protection.

“That’s all I had to tell you,” he grunted, angry that Nori didn’t feel more concerned about his brother. “Now give back my pipe.” “There you go,” Nori said as he obeyed. “And thank you. I will not forget that you wanted to help Ori. You have my… gratitude, not that nobs put a lot of value on it. What’s the gratitude of a thief, eh?”

“ Not much,” Dwalin agreed. “But I  _ do  _ appreciate the gratitude of a friend.”

Nori stared at him with wide eyes, and the taller dwarf had to contain a smirk. He might not have managed to do anything to protect Ori and Thorin, but he’d managed to surprise Nori _twice_ in the same morning, and that was a feat he could feel proud of.

 


	19. Old friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirkwood has a rather disastrous effect on an already shaken Thorin

Mirkwood was a terrible, confusing place, and after a few days, Thorin was no longer sure what was real and what wasn’t.

He was almost sure that Frerin wasn’t truly walking by his side, and he did not answer whenever his grandfather called his name. He had seen them die, he had buried them with the honour due to their rank. He remembered holding his brother’s ice cold hand before he was given back to the rock. He remembered Azog beheading Thror, and the way rage and despair had taken over him after it.

He was more doubtful whenever he saw Thrain. He father might still have lived, no matter what some people said. Thrain might have lived, and he might have found them, might have joined them to help them fight for his kingdom… but he only ever talked to Thorin, and no one else seemed to have noticed him either.

His real problem, though, was Bâhâl (and when, when had Thorin forgotten his lover’s outer name?)(then again it wasn’t the only thing he had forgotten, Bâhâl’s voice was long lost, and what colour had been their eyes?)(brown maybe, Thorin thought sometimes, but he was never sure if it was the truth, or just the way new memories imposed themselves upon old ones)

Bâhâl was there with them, just like Thrain… but unlike Thorin’s father, his old lover did talk with the rest of the company. Bâhâl chatted with them, worried with them, helped them with their chores… Fili and Kili laughed with that ghost sometimes, until Dori chased them so that he could tend to Bâhâl’s hair, pretending to ignore the way Nori laughed at him for being a mother hen. Bâhâl was there, truly there.

Bâhâl couldn’t be there, because Thorin remembered how his lover had died, he remembered leaving his beloved’s mangled corpse behind him as he ran to save his grandfather, he remembered mourning and crying until he could not feel anything anymore, he remembered…

And yet, his One was there once more, at his side, watching him day and night but never talking to him.

“Maybe I should speak to them,” he told Thrain one night. “I miss them. I never stop missing them, and it has been so long…”

“I never stopped missing your mother,” Thrain claimed, as he often did when he really was there. “I don’t think I ever will. No dwarf should have to live without their One once we have met them. The Maker has no right to be so cruel to us.”

“That fool won’t listen to you,” Frerin laughed, coming out of nowhere. “Never does. You should have picked a less stubborn lover, brother, because this one will drive you mad.”

“Mad,” Thorin repeated, and as he blinked, both his father and his brother disappeared. “Am I going mad?”

There was no answer. He was not sure he would have wanted one anyway. Looking around him, Thorin saw the entire company was sleeping. He was keeping watch, he remembered, and then Thrain had come to sit by him, and they had watched Bâhâl who slept between Nori and Dori. But the ghost of his lover was no longer there, and in his place, there was little Ori. Thorin almost preferred the ghost, although he suspected even that was tainted by his thoughts of the young scribe.

Did Bâhâl have brown eyes, or were they Ori’s? And to whom belong that smile he saw in his dreams, who laughed that way, who sauntered like this when in a good mood? Ori was changing everything, destroying and replacing what few memories Thorin still had of the dwarf he had wanted to spend his life with. Ori is punishment, Ori is torment, Ori whom he wanted to hold and kiss and kill and never look at again, Ori who was too much like Bâhâl and yet entirely different. Thorin never knew what he liked best, the resemblance or the difference.

“You should go to sleep,” Dwalin grunted as he sat next to him. “I think you need it.”

Thorin jumped in surprise and stared at his cousin, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Was Dwalin still alive or was he another ghost. He did not think his old friend had died, he could not remember hearing about it nor seeing it, but it was hard to tell in that moment…

“I mean it, go to sleep,” Dwalin repeated, more gently, putting one hand on Thorin’s shoulder and this contact was too real to come from within his own mind. “This forest’s doing things to us. You need to rest while you can.”

“I should…”

“I’ll watch over everyone, Thorin. I promise. But you need the rest. You look like shit. You look like someone died.”

“They did,” Thorin retorted blankly. “They all died. Everyone dies, everyone I love. You will die too. And my nephews. And that boy too… I will kill you all. It’s my curse.”

Dwalin looked afraid for a second, truly afraid, and it scared Thorin in return. His cousin did not often let fear take hold of him. If Dwalin was afraid, then Thorin had to be frightening.

“You’re not cursed,” Dwalin promised. “You’re just tired. If anything’s cursed, it’s these damn woods. You’ll feel better when we’re out of them. Damn, even the bloody hobbit can’t stand being here, and you know his sort would fuck with tree if they would just find a way. The problem’s the forest, not you. So go to sleep, I’ll keep watch until it’s Gloin’s turn.”

Thorin nodded sleepily. He did not resist when Dwalin took him by the hand and walked him toward his nephews, even if Frerin was laughing. He said nothing when his cousin helped him lie down next to Fili, even though Thror frowned and said he should have felt his tiredness long ago.

He did however sit up when he noticed that Bâhâl was awake and staring at him.

“I am not cursed,” he told the ghost, “and I am not mad. Once I am out of the forest, I will never see you again, not until I join you in the Halls. Because I am not mad.”

Dwalin and Bâhâl exchanged a worried look, but said nothing, and Thorin felt he could safely go to sleep.

He was not mad.

He was not cursed.

And if he repeated it enough, if he believed it enough, it might become true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this as I am myself exhausted after a long day was probably not a very smart decision  
> this is probably full of mistakes and I'll probably regret posting it in the morning  
> but eh  
> yolo


	20. the elves' prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori and Dori have a chat about Nori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a nicer chapter to compensate the previous one?

Things had changed in Mirkwood. The forest had always been a little strange, and the elves had always been a little odd, but neither had ever been so willing to kill and destroy. Ori had been there before, once or twice, and he had made friends, elves to whom he had written… he remembered Thorin encouraging it, saying it showed goodwill between their people, that one day they would repair the damages Thror’s strange fancies were making… but now Thorin was the one with queer ideas, and there would be no repairing this.

Ori wished he had been put in a cell with Nori. Then he could have talked with someone about what was going on with Thorin. He wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed, because something in the air of Mirkwood had affected them all, but certainly Nori would have seen it. Nori saw everything. And right at this moment, he was in another cell, trying to flirt with Dwalin out of boredom, and Ori could only press his head against the bars and hope nothing bad would come out of it.

“You could look like it’s less of a punition to be here with me,” Dori mentioned behind him. “I have feelings you know, and if you could at least pretend to be relieved they put you in here with me, it would make me feel a little better.”

“I am glad they put me with you,” Ori protested, a little ashamed as he turned toward his brother. “I really am. It’s just that I’m worried for Nori, I wish he were with us.”

“Well, I for one am glad he’s not,” Dori claimed severely, before grinning. “He’d have an even better view on Dwalin from here, and you he’d have imagined all sorts of silly things to get his attention. I swear, someone should teach that boy to flirt normally.”

That got him a chuckle from Ori, who had thought the same thing once or twice.

“He’s getting serious about it though, isn’t he?” Dori asked, joining Ori near the bars to look at their brother. “At first he just seemed to be doing it to annoy Dwalin… and the Maker knows I can’t blame him for wanting revenge after being arrested, but they’ve been different since Mirkwood.”

“Since Beorn’s,” Ori corrected with a frown.

Something had happened then. One morning Dwalin and Nori had disappeared outside for a long while. Dwalin had come back on his own, and Ori had had to go get his brother when lunch time had come. Nori had been strangely quiet for the rest of the day, and when he’d started teasing Dwalin again, there hadn’t been the usual bite to it. Nori had refused to say what had happened, but after that day, Ori noticed that his brother often made sure to be between him and Thorin, no matter how far from them the king could be.

“I wouldn’t have imagined Dwalin to be the sort to fall for someone like Nori,” Dori sighed. “But then again, I would have thought Nori would be interested by someone like Dwalin… or anyone at all, really. I guess all I can do is hope everything will go well.”

“You could always go to Dwalin and tell him you’ll rip him apart if he hurts your baby brother?”

“Ori, if you think I don’t already plan to do that, you do not know me at all.”

Ori laughed louder than he should have then, and when he noticed that the elves guarding them were glaring at him it only made him laugh louder while Dori soon joined him. This was probably the most conversation he’d had since the start of the quest… since long before that, even. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like to chat and gossip about family, to discuss potential in-laws and how to terrorize them… 

“Imagine their marriage,” Dori said once he had calmed down a little, “We will have to say on the invitations that no one should wear any sort of jewelry, or it will end up in Nori’s pockets.”

“Or in his hair,” Ori chuckled.

Dori smiled at him, and they started imagining all the things they would have to do to make sure that the guests would leave the ceremony with all the valuables they had brought in. It was silly and pointless, because even if there was anything happening between Dwalin and Nori, it was unlikely that a noble would ever marry a thief, even a reformed one… and that was supposing Nori reformed at all. But it kept them busy, and it helped them forget, just for a moment, how hopeless the situation was.

They were still laughing about how Nori might try to steal someone’s gold tooth when Bilbo appeared out of nowhere and freed them all.

Not that Ori was fully happy with the hobbit’s plan. For one thing, he could not swim. For another, he remembered the currents in that river, and swimming wouldn’t have helped him. Anyone who fell in would die, but he made a point to  _ not  _ say it. Thorin seemed to approve of Bilbo’s plan anyway, and he looked saner than he had since they had first stepped in Mirkwood. The rest was but a detail, Ori decided. If Thorin could find it in himself to believe they would survive, then so could he.

 


	21. orc poison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili is wounded

Kili was dying, and Thorin did not want to see it happen. It would be one death too many, and after seeing so many ghosts in Mirkwood, he could not bear it. He had been feeling better in Laketown, had been better since Bilbo had opened his cell's door in Thranduil's dungeons. He had stepped outside, and the ghosts had remained behind.

Frerin had even wished him good luck.

All his fears, all his doubts had disappeared during the escape. There was no time for them, not when they were all fighting for their lives, and Thorin felt better than he had in weeks. Everything was real again, there were no more ghosts or memories to plague him, and he was in control of his body and his thoughts. He was alive, and determined to stay so. Everything would be fine.

And it might have been, until Kili got shot.

Thorin didn't think much of it at first. A wound at the thigh was never nice, but it quickly became obvious that it was not just any wound. Thorin had seen orc poison in action before, and he knew some of the others probably had too. Oin in particular could not ignore its effect. They didn't say anything, none of them, because there hadn't been time to properly look at his wound at first, but when he collapsed in those stairs, Thorin knew. Frerin had collapsed the same way, a few hours after the orcs had withdrawn at Azanulbizar, and he hadn't been the only one.

Kili still walked, but he was dead already.

“I'll stay with him,” Oin told Thorin that night, while an impromptu party was thrown for them by the people of Laketown. “Either you come back and pick me up when all's done in the mountain, or you don't come back and I'll find my way to the Iron Hills.”

“Thank you,” Thorin replied gratefully.

No one should have to be alone, and Oin knew how to perform the death rites.

  


He should have known that Fili would want to stay with his brother. He should have known, and he should have told him the night before that there was no way to save Kili. No one survived orc poison. But even if he had known, it might not have stopped Fili. He was too young to have lost hope yet. Too young to realize that the Maker despised their family and was determined to crush it.

“At least they'll be safe here,” Frerin said, who has stepped on the boat beside him right as Fili left it.

“No one is safe,” Thorin retorted in a low voice.

“Certainly they will be safer that you,” Thror promised, his voice coming from behind Thorin, though when he turned, the king saw only Ori and Bilbo chatting. Or it might have been Bâhâl with the hobbit, he wasn't sure anymore.

“Bofur's not here yet,” someone said, and Thorin hoped it was someone real this time.

Bombur was looking at him, and everyone who wasn't staring at the cook was turned toward Thorin. Something must have really been said then.

“We cannot wait anymore,” he claimed. “We leave now.”

No one protested. After seeing him leave his own nephews behind, there could be no protesting. Erebor awaited.

And Fili was safe at least. The royal line of Durin would live on, no matter what happened in that mountain. Fili was safe.

  


Fili should have been safe.

 _Would_ have been safe, if Thorin had not set a furious dragon against Laketown.

But he was about to die now, and join his brother who must have been dead too. The royal line of Erebor had fallen.

Thorin's only comfort, a cruel and selfish one, was that he would not have to see his sister's heart be broken once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said it in the tags and I repeat it here: all canon deaths will happen. Every single one of them. This is me warning you. This is not a happy fic. In case you hadn't noticed yet.


	22. there was a tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori does what he had come to do

The dragon was gone, and they had failed to kill him, failed to find the Arkenstone, failed to do anything but bring death and destruction. And soon, Smaug would bring it to them too, when he would return. They had a few hours at best.

Ori firmly intended to use these hours.

Everyone was sitting on the floor, trying to rest, trying to understand what had happened.

But he could not afford to rest. He had a mission to accomplish. Two missions, really, but it mattered little whether he protected Thorin or not now. Since the moment he'd understood that the dragon was going to kill his nephews, the king had given up. He was standing at a window, watching Laketown burn. A dead dwarf standing. But Ori still had a duty to himself…

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dori asked tiredly when Ori started walking away. “It’s dangerous here, don’t wander around.”

“I have something to do,” Ori retorted coldly. “Beside, the only dangerous thing here was that dragon, and right now he’s not our problem, is he?”

They all flinched, while Thorin turned pale. Any other day, Ori would have worried about propriety, about kindness, about making the king like him. But this was not any other day. This was the day when he would die, and before it happened, he had to bury his own corpse.

“You could fall,” Dori protested weakly. “You could lose yourself…”

“Here? I’ll never lose myself in Erebor,” Ori retorted, too exhausted to fake ignorance anymore. “I’ll be in the main hall. Near…” He stopped for a moment, trying to remember. “Near the door that leads to the eastern diamond mines. But I won’t go down. I just… need to look for something.”

“Do you want me to come?” Nori asked.

Ori smiled weakly, but shook his head. This was something he needed to do alone. He wasn’t sure how he would react, and he wasn’t sure he would be safe to be around. Nori seemed to understand, maybe.

“You have two hours and then I'll come looking for you.”

Two hours ought to be enough, Ori decided. There wouldn't be much left, just a few bones, a ring or two... the beads than had been in his hair, too. He could put it all on his coat and carry it somewhere nice to bury himself.

 

There were many corpses lying in front of the main gate, and Ori had some trouble finding his. It was a large place after all, and there were so many dwarves who had died there... but after a while, he noticed that when he went a certain direction, his heart clenched painfully and he would get nauseous. He tried to avoid it at first, until he realized why he could be having that reaction.

And that was how he found himself.

He cried at first. He fell to his knees and cried until he could barely breathe, and he must have shouted too because when he calm down, his throat felt raw. He was dead, and about to die again, with nothing to show for his efforts because Thorin would die too. He had failed so utterly at everything he had tried, and maybe, just maybe, he should have listened to Mahal and stayed dead.

But at the same time, that would have meant never meeting Nori and Dori and their mother. It would have meant never playing with Fili and Kili. And he would never had met Bilbo either, never have talked to a hobbit. These were things he _couldn't_ regret. This second chance hadn't given him what he had hoped for, but it had still been a _good_ life, and that thought gave him the strength to carry on with his plan.

He laid his coat on the floor, and one by one, he put his bones on it. He could not bury himself were he really would have wanted, in a garden he used to love, because it was on the other side of the mountain... but there was a nice place, or at least a place that had once been nice, not so far from the main gate, and that would do just fine.

Ori got up, his coat carefully folded around his bones, and almost dropped everything when he saw Thorin a few feet away. Watching him. Ori pulled his remains close to his heart and looked around for an escape way. Thorin had been odd since Mirkwood, and the burning of Laketown had only made him odder.

“No one should be left without a grave,” Ori tried to explain before the king could say anything. “There's so many people, but I have to start somewhere, and...”

“I think there's a place nearby where people who kept the road practicable had shovels,” Thorin cut him with a monotone voice. “It will help.”

He walked away and Ori followed him. It seemed like the right thing to do at the moment, even if he felt uncertain about being alone with Thorin. But the king mostly ignore him, grabbing shovels in a small room near the gate and then leading them outside. He brought them to the exact place Ori had thought about, and it had the scribe wondering if he'd ever said anything about it, years earlier when he was a different dwarf. He might have. He didn't remember it being particularly important to him, but there had once been a tree there... apple, or pears, or even cherries. The last tree before the mountain, he had joked sometimes with Dwalin when they were children... and maybe he had told Thorin about that one day.

After Ori had put his coat on the ground, they started digging together. The sky became lighter and lighter as time passed, and by the time they had a small grave ready, the sun was rising.

“How should we do this?” Thorin asked. “Will you be wanting your coat back, or...”

“It's not like I'll need it for very long, right?” Ori replied. “It'll be more useful that way. It's... It feels more respectful, I guess?”

The king nodded, then hesitated.

“I would like to... see the remains anyway. It is traditional... I knew that dwarf, and I cannot... there are things that must be done and said.”

Without a word, Ori carefully unfolded his coat, exposing his bones. He had brought his jewels too, but somehow they felt less bright to him than the bones. _These_ were painful to look at, and Ori had to look away while Thorin recited a few farewell words. He almost _felt_ it when the king kissed what had once been his skull.

“We were engaged once,” Thorin said, mostly to himself, as he picked up something among the bones. “We were less than a month away from our wedding when Smaug came.”

Ori nodded, unsure what to say. They were going to die in a couple hours, when the dragon would return. Maybe now was the time to tell Thorin everything, to...

“Sometimes, I look at you, and I think my beloved,” the kind sighed, carefully folding the coat over Ori's bones. “And other times, I think you could not be more different. I do not understand it. But sometimes, when I look at you... I feel like you shouldn't exist. Even now I wonder if it isn't you that I should throw in that grave. Or maybe it should be me. Would you bring down your bones with me, Bâhâl, so that we might be together at last?”

Ori shivered, and shook his head.

“You still have too much to do,” he whispered, gently pushing the king away from the hole. “You will rest later. All is lost, but you have to be a king until the end, don't you?”

“I've killed them, Bâhâl,” Thorin replied, and Ori shivered uncomfortably to hear his inner name used so casually. “I have killed my nephews, my heirs... everyone dies. I have killed them all.”

That was oddly familiar, Ori thought as he moved to take the older dwarf in his arms. It had happened before, when they were much younger and Thorin was overwhelmed by his responsibilities sometimes. It had been Ori's job to comfort him, and it had been so _easy_ back then, when he truly believed that the world was a happy place, that nothing would ever harm them if they loved each other enough, if they kept smiling and did what was right. But in their situation, that would have been a lie. There were no words of comfort, not then, not there, not when they were going to die so soon. All Ori could do was hold the king until he felt better, or killed them both.

He was glad when the first option was picked, and Thorin pulled away, looking ashamed but no longer so despaired.

“I am sorry about this,” he tried to say, “I was only...”

“Let's bury this,” Ori cut him, too exhausted to deal with excuses. “Nori will be coming after me soon, and even if he doesn't, I'd be surprised if the dragon doesn't.”

“Dragon won't be a problem,” a hoarse voice said above them. “Not a problem at all.”

They looked up, and saw a raven there, one like the many Ori had seen around the mountain once. It flew down to them, bowed slightly before Thorin before announcing that Smaug had perished, killed by a black arrow.

They had won. The mountain was theirs again after all.

“We need to warn the others,” Thorin decided, standing up, looking like a king again rather than a broken dwarf. “We need to look for the Arkenstone... and I must see that my cousin Dain is warned. Come, master Ori, let us go back inside. And take your coat with you. I will not let my beloved be buried here on the road, like a thief. The royal grave awaits, and we shall have a triple ceremony, when the bodies of my nephews are returned to us. Maybe there is still hope for me in this world after all.”

Ori smiled and took his coat, but didn't answer. It would have been too odd, talking of hope when he was carrying his own bones. Hope, he was starting to find, was something that happened to other people.

 


	23. Sane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle of the five armies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for... you know. Canon happening.

 

“Uncle, come and help us!” Fili begged as Azog approched, but Thorin ignored it.

This battle was too important and he could not allow himself to be distracted by ghosts.

 

Things had been so _close_ to being right again. Smaug had died, they had won, and for a moment Thorin had dared to hope that thing would be right after all. Even if the royal line was broken... he had thought of adopting one of Dain's children maybe, or at least naming one as his heir...

Until the people of Laketown had arrived, pretending they had a claim on the treasure of his people, allying themselves with elves, and bringing to him the ghosts of his nephews. Bofur and Oin were there too, more ghosts to haunt him, but it was seeing Kili and Fili that was the last blow. There really was a curse of madness upon their line then.

Maybe it was a blessing that the boys had perished before they could be touched by it.

To forget about them, to ignore their ghost who kept trying to talk to him, Thorin threw himself in his search for the Arkenstone, and pushed the others to help him. They had to find it. Without it he was powerless, nothing but the shadow of a king. Without it, Dain had more claim over Erebor than even Thorin, if only because he had an army at his disposal. He had to find the Arkenstone. He needed it. His nephews couldn't have died for nothing.

But Bilbo found the stone first, and gave it away to their enemies.

The voices of Thorin's ghosts rose all around him, telling him to either kill the traitor or have mercy of him. They were all so loud and he would have done anything to silence them, so when most of them started to ask for the hobbit's blood, Thorin agreed. The only thing that saved Bilbo, in the end, was Gandalf's voice, louder and clearer than all others, who made the ghosts go away.

It was then, too, that Thorin realized he would not rule Erebor. Could not rule it. Not with voices so loud and demanding he would have done anything to make them stop, with no regard for justice or fairness. He would have to abdicate in favour of... whoever would want that throne. Dis was next in line, but Thorin doubted his sister would ever come back. Not after the mountain had cost her sons their lives, and her brother his sanity. Dain would take the crown then, or one of his children. And Thorin would be nothing but another mad king in the history of the line of Durin.

 

So when an army of orcs and wargs was announced, Thorin decided that, having lost his sister-sons and his kingdom, he might as well die with a bang. His company agreed to follow him, as did all of his ghosts. He _tried_ to ask them to stay behind. He asked his brother and father. He asked Bâhâl and his nephews, but they all insisted that they would follow him.

“You are our king and kin,” Fili and Frerin claimed with one voice. “We belong with you.”

Thorin had given in.

Madness mattered little at death's door.

Slowly, one by one, the ghosts had disappeared as the battle went on. Bâhâl was the first he lost sight of, soon followed by Thror. Thrain had been next, and then Frerin, who had promised they would soon be together again.

But Fili and Kili remained. Thorin ignored them, pretended not to hear them shout his name, not to see them fighting orcs after orcs. They were not real. They were ghosts, and he would not let them distract him. They were ghosts and not even that, only the result of his imagination. But he would see them again soon. He was getting tired, and soon he would not be able to fight anymore.

He was almost glad when Azog's mace hit first Kili and then Fili, making the ghosts disappear.

Now that they were gone, he was sane again, and ready for his last fight.

And soon, he would be reunited with his nephews.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [braidedribbon](http://braidedribbon.tumblr.com/post/81376194528/thecutestscribeoferebor-braidedribbon) once suggested something about Thorin thinking that his nephews had died in Laketown, and refusing to help them during the battle because he thought they weren't really there  
>  the idea was too deliciously painful not to use


	24. a mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the battle, Ori stays with Thorin

At some point during the night, someone had asked Ori if he wanted something to eat or drink. He had accepted a little water, and asked for news of his brothers, and of the rest of the company. But he had refused to be shown a bed in another tent. He explained that there, sitting on the floor next to Thorin, was where he belonged. He was polite, but quite firm in his refusal. Every bit like the king's consort that he should have become, had the world been kinder.

At dawn, Balin came in. He seemed surprised to see Ori, but did not make any comment.

“I need to see Bilbo,” the king rasped when he saw his old friend. “If he survived...”

“We have not seen him yet,” Balin explained as gently as he could. “But Thorin... my friend, my cousin, you have to know, your nephews...”

“Dead,” the king sighed. “Dead, all dead. There is only Dis now, and how long will she live now the boys are gone? I should not have left them in Laketown. I should have forced Fili to come at least, and then he would not have burned... but there was no saving Kili, was there? Orc poison...”

Balin looked at Ori, and the scribe looked back. They had all noticed the way Thorin had been avoiding his nephews since their return. They had thought he was suspicious, that he suspected them of being allies of the Men. He had trusted no one near the end, and even if Bilbo had not betrayed them, Thorin might have tried to attack one of them anyway.

They had never thought that whatever was happening to him had gotten so bad that he could no longer distinguish reality from delusions.

“You did all that you could,” Balin said kindly. “Some things are meant to happen, sooner or later.”

“And I will soon see them again. But first... find the hobbit and bring him to me. I never meant to harm him, it was the voices... but they're gone now. Everything is so quiet.”

Balin did not insist. When he had promised to look for the hobbit, Thorin fell asleep. Balin left, but Ori remained. This was were he belonged, until his One's last breath.

 

They had not yet found Bilbo when Thorin awoke again.

“I'm thirsty,” he said to no one in particular, looked surprised when Ori stood up to bring him water. He drank it slowly, his eyes never leaving the scribe. “You are Ori,” he whispered. “Ori son of Ari.”

“I am.”

“Sometimes, I have mistaken you for someone else. I must have scared you, that day, before the raven came...”

“You did not,” Ori assured him. “I think maybe, I was the one who scared you. I never knew my decisions would lead us here... I just wanted to be happy again. I realized too late how selfish I was.”

“I don't understand.”

Ori hesitated. His first attempt at telling the truth to Thorin had been a terrible failure, and maybe the first step toward the king's breaking... but Thorin was dying, and he would not have another chance like this until his death... and his One deserved to know why he wouldn't be waiting for him in the Halls.

“I told you once that my inner name is Bâhâl, but people used to call me Glewin,” Ori said softly, and Thorin's breath stopped for a second. “I was Dwalin's cousin. When we first met, we couldn't stand each other you and me. But we warmed up to each other. I knew I was in love with you the day you tried to teach me archery and I was so bad at it, but you kept saying I would improve with time, if I'd just accept private lessons from you, and my heart beat so hard I thought I was dying. You told me later that I was impossibly bad at it, but you'd have said anything to spend time with me.”

Thorin sobbed, and his more intact hand sought Ori's.

“We told people that our first kiss was on Durin's day, during the party that night, because your sister had found our hiding place. But the truth was, you'd kissed me some weeks earlier. I was shouting at you because you were so wrong about the meaning of a story, and you said you'd found no other way to shut me up.”

“No ones knows this,” Thorin cried. “We never told anyone. Even Frerin never knew...”

“No one knows but us,” Ori replied tenderly.

“But you are dead. I saw you die. I almost buried you with... are you another ghost?”

“I'm real, Thorin. And I am so, so sorry for what you have gone through. I wanted to help you, but I made it all worse. I'm so _sorry_.”

His voice broke on that last word. Sorry did not even _begin_ to cover it. He had ruined everything, he should have waited for Thorin in the halls, as all dwarves did, instead of being selfish and impatient...

Thorin squeezed his hand.

“Kiss me if you are real,” he ordered. “Ghosts do not kiss.”

“You always came up with the worst excuses to demand kisses,” Ori sobbed with a half-smile, before leaning toward the dying dwarf and kissing him.

It made him sick to feel Thorin's lips so cold, and his breath so weak, but that was not why Ori broke into tears. It just felt too right to be kissing his lover again, after so many years, so much pain.

When they broke apart, Thorin was crying too.

“So it is you. During you naming ceremony, you tried to...”

“It was a mistake. It was _all_ a mistake. I should have _waited_. But I didn't and I ruined everything, and I am so _sorry_.”

Thorin smiled, and squeezed his hand again.

“Sorry? Don't be sorry. I only wish I had understood. Then I would have been proud of having a lover such as you, instead of being scared... I will be proud of you for what time I have left, and then I will wait for you in the Halls.”

“I'll come to you.”

“Not too soon,” Thorin sighed. “You have to live. Take care of Erebor. Watch over Balin... Dwalin too. Make sure they are happy. Make sure you are happy too, and don't follow me too quickly. I will wait. Make me wait.”

“I will,” Ori promised. “And then you'll complain again that I'm always late for everything.”

They both laughed at that, until Thorin's laugher turned into a painful cough. That was the moment Balin chose to come in, to tell Bilbo had been found. If the old dwarf noticed that they were holding each other's hand, he said nothing of it. Neither did the hobbit, when he came in.

Ori only let go of king's hand when it turned cold.

He then went to look for Dwalin, to see how he was.

He had promised after all.

 


	25. Moving on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on, as it tends to do

Ori and Dori were helping Nori carry some of his things to Dwalin's place, and one of them must have said something wrong, because their brother stopped where he was and turned to glare at them.

“I'm not marrying him!” he growled. “That fucking pile of shit's a nob, why would I marry someone like that? He bloody arrested me! I'm not marrying him.”

“Of course you're not,” Dori replied with his most diplomatic smile. “My tongue just slipped.”

“Well, watch your tongue then. And move faster, I haven't got all day.”

It was only good education that prevented Ori and Dori from laughing out loud, as well as the knowledge that Nori still wasn't at ease with his little romance. They did not want to ruin this for him, not when it was already hard enough for Dwalin and him. The strange flirting they'd had during the quest had been one thing, but figuring out how to work past that had been another. Some days they'd had arguments that the entire mountain heard. They sometimes also heard them making up, when they went to have a drink together and sang everything single song that had ever been written about the battle.

It didn't worry Ori as much as the silent arguments did, the ones that had Nori coming back home and hiding in his room. Once or twice, Nori was in such a state that he told things to his brother without asking for anything in return. It was always small things that started these arguments, or at least things that Dwalin must have thought to be small, such as asking Nori to behave himself in court in the middle of people whom he had always hated, or to stop harassing a rich smith recently returned from Ered Luin and whom Ori suspected to have sired Nori's child. The arguments started by Dwalin were always the quiet ones, and they only forgave him because he obviously was sorry about it and just didn't understand what the problem had been.

Nori might have liked Dwalin well enough, but years of habit meant he couldn't trust him yet so soon.

But they were trying, and every time Nori ran home, Dwalin came to apologise with the nicest food he'd found that day. He no longer insisted on Nori being nice in court these days, and he'd simply asked the smith to avoid him if possible. And then, after each argument, Dori and Ori were forced to help their brother move some of his things to Dwalin's home, their mother staying behind and promising them a good meal as a reward for their efforts. Ori grumbled a lot, but he didn’t mind.

Nori and Dwalin weren’t married, but they had been living together for two years already, and now all of Nori’s things would be at their house.

“I’d never have thought he would be the first one to settle,” Ari joked that night around a delicious stew. “I didn’t think any of you had a head for romance to be fair, but Nori least of all. I wonder if you’re going to surprise me too?”

“Dori might, who knows,” Ori answered. “But you’re stuck with me, mama. I won’t fall in love with anyone.”

“No, I don’t imagine you will,” his mother sighed, and she quickly changed the subject, asking how messy Dwalin’s house was, and wondering if they shouldn’t hire somebody to tidy it.

Sometimes, Ori wondered what his brothers had told her about him and Thorin, about the quest, about everything, because there were things she did not talk about in front of him, or not for long. She had never said Thorin’s name near him, nor Kili’s and Fili’s. And no one, not a single person in the company or out of it, ever mentioned the fact that he had held the dying king’s hand. Even Nori had not offered to buy this information… and Ori was glad. He did not want to have to refuse.

  
  


It was some years later when Balin first talked of attempting to reclaim Khazad Dum, and Ori thought it was a terrible idea.

He was still one of the first to sign up for it.

The fact was, Dwalin and Nori had become quite good at comforting each other, they never had the quiet arguments anymore. Dori had opened a nice little tea shop and he’d made friends who were as quiet and polite and well behaved as him, though there were a few who could be just as terrifying in a fight, if need be. As for Ari… she had been old when she died, and she had told them times and times again how happy she had been to have a chance to come back to the mountain where she’d been bored. The three of them had been devastated by her death, but Ori still felt the loss, even after so long. They had  _ not  _ been the easiest children one could have, but she’d done her best to help them along, and Ori missed her everyday

And with her gone, the only person he still had to look after was Balin, so if Balin was leaving for certain death, he would do it with Ori at his side.

When he came to announce his decision, Ori worried for a moment that the old dwarf would think this was about Thorin. He would not have been entirely wrong. He might not have worried so much over Balin if his One had not asked him too. During his first life he had always been closer to Dwalin, who was of nearly the same age, and when he had met Balin again, the other dwarf had never been fully at ease with him. And it was true too that, in spite of his other promise to Thorin, Ori was not so eager to live. But if his death could help, if he could make it  _ matter _ …  and it was madness to go to Khazad Dum, certainly, but it had been madness too to come to Erebor.

Ori found he rather liked mad dwarves, maybe because he wasn’t always sure of being sane himself.

But thankfully, Balin did not question his decision, and when Ori had signed his contract, he only smiled.

“Welcome, master Ori, to the company of Balin son of Fundin.”

  
  


Later, much later, Ori wondered if he had been right to come. When, after a year or peace, the orcs started fighting back, and dwarves started dying again, Ori thought that he might be the problem.

When Balin died, Ori became convinced that it was his fault. He was a bearer of bad luck. He should have known that Mahal would not so easily give in to his foolish desires, he should have known there would be a price for his return to life.

A price others had paid. Thror, his son, his younger grandson. His uncle Fundin. The dwarf who had sired this new version of him. Then later there had been Thorin, and the princes. And now Balin too, and many others, all dead because they had been near him.

When news of Oin’s demise reached him, Ori thought he might break.

The others did not let him. There were better warriors than him among the survivors, and people who knew better how to give orders, but he was a former member of Thorin’s Company. He was a hero, they whispered, and he realized that if he did not stay in control of himself, they might think all was lost.

And it was, really. It had been since the moment he had signed his contract because he was bad luck. But they were dwarves. They would face death and look at it in the eye. If all Ori could give them was a little more strength to do that, then he would. After all, he had almost been a king’s consort. It was his duty to give hope to his people, even when there was none to be had.

And when the time came, Ori died with terror in his heart but an axe in each hand.

  
  


Ori opened his eyes again, and he noticed two things. First, he was no longer in pain. And more importantly, Thorin was sitting next to him, smiling.

“Hello,” Ori mumbled. “It’s been a while.”

“Not so long. What part of do not follow too quickly did you not understand?”

His tone was playful, and his smile kind, and if he has still lived, Ori thought he might have died of happiness. He might have kissed his lover, if he had not noticed the people around them, his friends and both of his families… but then again, he was dead. Propriety was for the living. So he threw his arms around Thorin’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. A real one this time, not a cold and quiet one like the one they had shared on the king’s death bed. A kiss that promised an eternity together, in the Halls of the ancestor…

Or maybe not.

Later, when the novelty of being together at last had wore off a little, and Ori had taken the time to greet all his friends, all his family, Thorin had an offer for him. And while it was a terrifying prospect, one that might hurt them again as much as they had already been hurt, Ori did not hesitate for long.

Anywhere Thorin went, he would follow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter and this will be the end /o/  
> But I do promise that the last chapter is happy


	26. epilogue

The city that dwarves were building in the glittering caves was a beautiful one, and Legolas was glad they had come back to look at it. It had been more than a decade since the first colons had arrived, and in that time they had done a wonderful one. Gimli was beaming with pride. The elf felt he had every right to it and even said so, which seemed to make his friend even happier.

“It will be even better in a few years!” the dwarf claimed. “We are going to increase the size of the mushroom farms, and we’ll dig a little further that way… there’s good rock there, it will make for strong houses. Just a few years, and this place will be just as nice as Erebor.”

“No it won’t,” said a small voice behind them. “Nothing’s nice like Erebor, everyone knows that.”

Gimli and Legolas turned, and discovered two young dwarfling. The one who had spoken was tall, with dark skin and piercing dark eyes, and the other was shorter, paler and stouter. He was also rolling his eyes, though he stopped whenever his companion looked his way.

“I know you,” Gimli said, smiling at them. “You are the twins.”

“ We’re not twins!” the tallest child protested. “We’re not even  _ related _ .”

“ Not yet,” the other dwarfling corrected. “We’re  _ engaged  _ though.”

Legolas laughed at that. The children couldn’t be more than ten, and even among Men, that would have been too young for such promises. He only stopped when he realized that Gimli did not share his amusement, and that the little ones were glaring at him.

“ Don’t mind him kids, he doesn’t know,” Gimli told them. “He means no harm. Now, why don’t you two go home? It’s late, your parents are going to worry. You should be particularly careful, Dworin. I  _ know  _ how Dwalin gets when rules are broken.”

The smallest child shivered and nodded. Taking his companion’s hand, he ran away, though both little ones turned a few times to glare at Legolas.

“I feel like I have just made mortal enemies,” the elf confessed, “and I do not even know why.”

“They’ll forgive you in a day or two,” Gimli laughed. “They are not bad kids, though Eryin has a sharp tongue that she’s not afraid to use, and Dworin can be even worse when he’s in the mood for it. They’re good kids both of them, and madly in love. They were since they first met, and they were just two. Talked of marrying since they could talk.”

“A children’s game.”

Gimli shook his head.

“I thought so too, but Nori… that’s Dworin’s other father… he says that if anyone laughs at the kids, he’s ready to break bones, and his not-husband promised to help. Eryin’s parents were a little less sure about it at first, but they’re fine with it now. Don’t think there’s a force in the world that could keep them apart. There’s some who said it’s not their first time being alive, and that they were star cross lovers who died a broken heart… but that’s nonsense. That’s what elves do, not proper people.”

“I shan’t take the bait on that,” Legolas laughed. “But if elves have managed to come back, why not dwarves? Your kind is certainly stubborn enough for it. I am however intrigued by this concept of not-husband that you spoke of. I would like to know more about that, I think.”

The dwarf nodded, and as they walked toward his home, he started telling the elf about his uncle Dwalin who had never married, even after decades of living with the same dwarf, and the odd story of how the equally odd couple had come to adopt a child, on their way to Aglarond.

At the same time, deep within the caves, two children walked hand in hand, and smiled at each other. They were together, and this time,  _ nothing  _ would separate them.

  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks everyone for following this story. It was not a very happy one, but I hope you still enjoyed it :)


End file.
